


Five Nights: YOU CAN'T (Old version)

by PreRagnarok



Category: Five Nights at Freddy's
Genre: Canonical Character Death, Death, Five Nights at Freddy's 1, Freddy Fazbear's Pizza, Gen, Hallucinations, Infrequent Swearing, Near Death Experiences
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-09-27
Updated: 2015-12-04
Packaged: 2018-04-22 22:57:36
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 11
Words: 58,008
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4853774
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/PreRagnarok/pseuds/PreRagnarok
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>BEING REWRITTEN</p><p>Old version. Ideas for characters and events have changed since this fic was written and no longer has meaning in this overall FIVE NIGHTS series of fics.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Prologue

**Author's Note:**

> This fic is set in 1993. 
> 
> I don't own most of the characters or the game.

" _Get a job, Mike_." was all she had to say.

No big deal, right? The long three months of summer had started, the college term had ended and Mike was left to do nothing but sleep in, play video games and do virtually nothing productive at all.

Naturally, his mother didn't approve of any of that.

Their conversation on the topic was a quick one.

" _You've done nothing for almost two weeks, get a job_!"

" _I'm on_ vacation _, mum! This thing was invented so that you don't have to do anything for three months_!"

" _I don't care, you sleep in my house and eat my food, the least you can do is put the skills you get from college to good use. College that might I add, I pay for, too._ "

" _The only jobs people are offering for people like me are in boring fast food_ _restaurants_!"

" _You don't need to have it all summer, just a week is enough_."

That shut him up real quick. All he had to do to make his mother happy was to get a dumb job for a week. No problem at all.

Unfortunately, the fact that getting a summer job seemed to be a popular idea among what seemed like every other student in the state and the fact that Mike was naturally a very picky person were two major obstacles that stood in his way. He didn't want to do anything boring, monotonous or tiring. He was also way too lazy to get a job that required him to learn too many new skills.

He tried to ignore his friend, Randall's laughter as he held the phone in one hand and flicked through the newspaper with the other.

" _Wow, I knew you were getting lazy because college has ended but this_?"

"Hey, why don't you shut up and be useful for three seconds?" Mike suggested, his voice dripping with bitterness, "Hey, your dad still has that shop selling second hand hand-me-downs, right?"

" _Yeah, but he's already got too much staff_."

Mike hissed in frustration, "Crap..." he muttered as he ignored another job that required at least ten years in the field of law, "You don't know  _any_ place with vacancies that I would actually want to turn up to?"

" _As in a job that lets you sleep in until 7 in the evening and takes next to no effort? I don't think so_." _  
_

Mike groaned and dropped the paper onto the floor and standing up, stretching his cramped muscles, as he heard Randall say, " _You  know you can always just go work at McDonalds or something. It's way easier than searching five days for a job that'll suit you're stupid needs-_ "

"Holy cow!"

" _Come on, it can't be_ that _bad. I mean, sure it smells kinda weird because all the food's gross and you need to swear to not tell anyone what's actually in the sauce, but-_ " _  
_

"Randall shut up, I found something! I'll call you back!" he barely heard his friend's confused reply before he slammed the phone down and grabbed the paper, which had by some coincidence fallen open to just the kind of job he was looking for:

**HELP WANTED!**

**Family pizzeria looking for security guard to work the night shift from 12am - 6am.**  
**Monitor cameras, ensure safety of equipment and animatronic characters.**  
**Not responsible for injury/dismemberment.**  
**$120 a week. To apply, call 1-888-FAZ-FAZBEAR**

It was for some place called Freddy Fazbear's Pizza. He'd heard a little about them, they used to be called Fredbear's Family Diner and run by an old couple before some rich person bought it and gave it a makeover. They apparently tried to make it a chain restaurant before some accident caused the sister location to be closed down. All he heard from it recently was that it was in a steady state of decline.

He re-read the advert, the times worked well for him. It gave him an excuse to sleep all day and spend the night playing video games without his mother complaining. The task the ad was asking didn't sound too difficult, just sit at a desk and look at a camera for six hours and the pay wasn't much, but he wasn't doing this job for the money. He just had to keep it for a week and then he could quit, or maybe even find a way to get himself fired for the fun of it.

The only thing that was unsettling at all was the claim  _'not responsible for any injury/dismemberment'_ but he shook it off as one of those legal claims every business had to cover. It wasn't as if there was anything dangerous that could injure or dismember him in a pizzeria for little kids.

He reached for the phone and dialled the number printed on the ad. An enthusiastic-sounding young woman picked up and Mike barely had to say anything before she invited him over to the pizzeria for an interview whenever he could. Mike shouted across the house to his mother that he had gotten a job and that she could lay off him and his SNES game console before running out of the house.

Despite what he'd heard of the place declining, the staff looked like they had really tried to make Freddy Fazbear's Pizza a cheery place. The neon lights up the front were switched on and three giant mascot faces were hung up above the doorway. Inside, almost every square metre of the walls were covered in children's drawings of the mascots, parties, parties with the mascots and for some reason, marionettes. The main room was filled with white plastic tables lined with party hats, a group of about seven kids were sitting at a table, eating and talking loudly while throwing bits of pizza and cake at one another while their parents told them off and an unlucky member of the staff sighed and went to get a mop.

To his right, Mike could see a closed curtain with a sign above it saying ' _Pirate's Cove is Out of Order! Sorry!_ '. They probably closed off one of their attractions to save money.

But the thing that really caught Mike's eye was up on the stage at the front of the room. The kids at the table who weren't screaming and throwing their food everywhere were staring with wide eyes up at three robot animals. They were about seven feet tall, singing some song about pizza and partying while moving jerkily in time to the music as in some kind of dance. On the left was a bunny, purple faux fur thinning in some places and holding a red and white electric guitar guitar while on the right was a chicken with a cupcake in one hand and a microphone in the other. Between them stood Freddy Fazbear itself.

It was slightly taller than the others, but that may have just been because of the top hat it wore giving it some extra height. It held a microphone to its mouth that clapped open and shut as it sung, its blue eyes darting across the room. Mike swore they rested on him for a brief second but a moment later, they were back to looking at everything.

"Michael!" a large middle-aged woman dressed in blindingly colourful clothes approached him with open arms. For a moment, Mike was convinced that she might try and hug him before she grabbed his arm and shook it vigorously before a stream of excited rambling came flowing from her mouth, "I'm Melanie, we talked on the phone but you can just call me Mel. Welcome to Freddy Fazbear's Pizza, Mike! You're going to love your job, Jonathan loves it too. It's such a shame that he's leaving after working on the night shift for almost four years, he's been such a great employee but I'm sure you'll do great too. I can ask somebody to show you the ropes but you'll pick up quickly-"

Mike just kept nodding and pretending to pay attention as her voice faded into the background. The animatronics finished their song and started a new one about candy.

Mel seemed to notice he was looking at them, "I see you like our star attractions." she noted, "They've really been one of the only things keeping up in business, the kids love them. I'm so glad they've barely ever had any technical issues, we could never afford repairs. But you're probably not interested in any of that, you'll want to see your workplace, correct?"

"Yeah sure, ok." said Mike, "I mean, I got the job?"

Mel laughed at the look of shock on his face, "You seem to be an honest young man, just the kind of people we welcome into the staff here at Freddy Fazbear's. Hang on a second, NIKKI! COME OVER HERE!"

The staff member who was mopping bits of food off the floor shoved the mop into the hands of the nearest employee and headed toward them.

"Nikki, this is Michael-" Mel began.

"Just Mike's fine."

"Sorry about that, Hon. Nikki, this is Mike Schmidt. He's going to start taking the night shift next week. Can you show him around?"

Nikki shrugged, "Sure, anything's better than wiping poop off the floor."

Mel sighed, and muttered something about sarcastic youths as Nikki dragged Mike away.

"So you're Schmidt?" Nikki asked once they were out of earshot, "Sounds German."

"Yeah, that's because I am." Mike replied flatly, "Would you believe that?"

"I actually had no idea that somebody would answer that ad Mel put in the paper." Nikki said, ignoring his comment as they crossed the room and made their way toward the stage, "Phone Guy's been working the night shift since this place reopened four years ago, though I have no idea why. It's not like you get payed a whole lot."

"Phone Guy?"

"His real name's Jonathan, but everyone calls him Phone Guy because barely anyone sees him these days, he prefers to record messages on the phone in the office than interact with people. I heard he worked here when it was still called Fredbear's Family Diner, maybe he just feels loyalty to this place. I mean, the music sucks, the general atmosphere is lame and the animatronics are downright creepy."

Mike stared up at the singing animatronics and couldn't help but agree. Maybe it had something to do with those black circles that ringed their plastic eyes or the musty scent they gave off that he could smell from where he was standing. He wondered just how old these things were. Ten years? Twenty?

"These are the things you're gonna be looking after." she pointed up at them, "Make sure nobody tries to steal or vandalise them. I don't think Mel cares about the rest of the pizzeria, she just wants these things to be safe. She says it's because the children love them, but I think it's just because they've been making her money for over twenty years."

She gestured to the large room they were standing in, "Anyway, back to the tour. This is the dining area, where all the fun and magic goes down during the day. It's the main room so you can get pretty much anywhere from here." she took him to the left side of the stage to what looked like a storeroom and pushed open the door. The room was dark and smelt awful, as if nobody ever used it. Mike peered through the gloom to see shelves lined with spare animatronic parts and about five mouldy costumes leaning along the wall, one for each animatronic he had seen on the stage and two for Freddy as well as one that resembled a pirate fox.

"We call this place backstage." Nikki told him, wrinkling her nose in disgust, "It's got all the spare bits for Freddy and his friends in case they break - not that they have. So everything in here has been left to rot."

"That explains why it smells like something died in here." Mike said and she agreed, swinging the door shut and cutting them away from the smell. All the same, the image of the five suits slumped against each other was burned into his mind. For some reason, the warm building seemed to have dropped ten degrees.

They passed Pirate Cove, Mike asking what was behind the closed purple curtain. Nikki just said "Some animatronic that malfunctioned a little while ago. It still works, but I think it gets repelled by sound making it useless in a place like this. Mel can't be bothered to fix it".

Mike started to get the idea Mel was a real cheapskate.

"This is the more useful storeroom: the supply closet." Nikki showed him into a small storage room, cluttered with cardboard boxes, she grabbed one of the boxes and opened it, "What's your shirt size?"

"What?"

"Does this fit?" she threw a purple shirt with the Freddy Fazbear's Pizza logo sewed onto it, "We don't have many of these things left, this place is closing down soon anyway. Do you want a cap?"

Mike pulled on the shirt which as a few sizes to big, "No, I'm fine, do you have anything a few sizes down?"

"That's the smallest size we have left, sorry. No cap? You sure? It's free."

Mike looked down at the purple shirt hanging off his skinny frame and took it off, "What the hell, sure."

She gave Mike one and grabbed five for herself, saying something to do with 'selling them after this place closed down'.

"And now our tour is brought to a close right here." she said, leading him down the hall to the office, "This is where you're going to be sitting all night, looking at an empty pizzeria. You'll love it. I don't know how Phone Guy has been entertaining himself these past few years. You could like, look at all these things little kids have drawn or something." she kicked a box filled with crayon drawings of the animatronics, "Maybe that'll pass the time."

The office was relatively small, with two doors that led to two separate halls. One that Mike and Nikki had just come from and the other which led to the bathrooms. The blue carpet was covered in stains, paint peeling in places on the walls that somebody had tried to cover up with photos of Freddy Fazbear and the desk was cluttered with books, paperwork and childish drawings. The only useful things on it were a metal fan, a small TV and a keyboard.

Nikki saw him eyeing the TV and felt the need to say, "Don't get your hopes up, that thing can only show what the security cameras see."

"What are these?" Mike questioned, pointing at the two buttons at each doorway.

Nikki shrugged, "I have no idea, I sweep the floors. I guess Phone Guy'll just explain it all to you next Monday."

They made their way back to the dining area where Mel approached them again.

"Nikki, a child has just had an accident. You wouldn't mind cleaning it up, would you?" Nikki groaned loudly and stomped off to get a mop. Mel smiled at Mike, "So what do you think of the place? Not too big, so you'll be able to easily monitor all the rooms. You'll do great!" she smiled reassuringly at Mike, "Of course, if you take the job that is."

He couldn't help but wonder if a reassuring smile was necessary. He just had to babysit a bunch of oversized singing stuffed toys for a week.

Not that they were doing a very good job at singing. He noted the fact that they often seemed to repeat syllables and occasionally a short metallic screech would punctuate their lyrics. He could barely understand what they were saying, though the partying kids didn't seem to care.

He once again stared up at the three animatronics, 'singing' and 'dancing'. The looked completely ridiculous. This week was going to be a piece of cake.

"Sure, I'll take the job." he said.

* * *

_It is an awful feeling to be surrounded by people, but to be so, so alone._

_They are all laughing, talking. Nobody approaches. Nobody says hi._

_Because they know who belongs and who doesn't._

_They're meant to be your friends, yet they cast you out. This is meant to be a place of joy, yet you cry._

_No, don't cry here. Don't spoil everyone else's good time. They don't deserve to be sad just because you are._

_They can't see you here. Outside. Everyone's walking past, paying no mind._

_Are your friends having fun? Better check-_

_They're having cake. Freddy is serving them. Good, they're happy. They're happy but you're not._

_You want to be happy. You long to be happy. But nobody wants you to be happy._

_You're an outcast._

_Just a puppet who's strings anyone can pull as they wish._

_You don't mind, though. As long as everyone else is happy._

_A car door slams, somebody brushes past you. You shy forward, closer to the gutter._

_Don't get in anyone's way._

_You see the person out of the corner of your eye. He stops in the middle of the pavement, turns and walk back towards you on the way back to his car._

_You shuffle forward a bit to get out of his way. Wipe away your tears before he thinks you're a weirdo._

_Ouch!_

_Something stabs your back as he passes._

_No, don't draw attention to yourself. Don't ruin people's day with a crying, whining kid. Nobody likes that._

_Maybe you should go back inside. The man is back in his car and driving away. You catch sight of Freddy at the window of the diner, watching him go._

_Funny, the door was a lot closer last time you checked. Everything's a bit blurry, your vision's a bit dark-_

_You trip and land on your face, body stinging but you can't get up. People stare. Someone comes and tries to help you up but you can't feel it as they grab your arm._

_Suddenly, you can't feel anything._

_What is happening?_

_No no, don't cry! Everyone's looking! You'll make everyone sad! Don't make them sad!_

_You can feel something now._

_It **burns.**_

_You're screaming._

_You're crying._

_You're dying._

_Nobody can help._

_All these people, yet you're dying alone._

_It takes a few minutes for your heart to stop and you lie, cold on the pavement._

_Will the man in the car be back? Will your friends me safe? All five of them... You love your five friends. You don't know if they love you back but you have to protect them._

_It's too late to save you, but if you have to, if the time comes, you will save them..._

_Yes, save them._

Mike woke in a cold sweat.


	2. Night One: Welcome to Your New Job

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I changed a little of what Phone Guy says so that it's a bit shorter. I'm pretty sure you already know what he says so I won't make you have to read everything all over again.

As he'd planned, Mike slept in all day and arrived at Freddy Fazbear's at 12, the bright neon signs glowing and flickering under an inky black sky. It was like a lone desert island clinging to the hope of prosperity amid a sea of urban decay.

Mel had given him the key for the door so he let himself in. The janitor had finished off about half an hour ago, though he could still smell the mustiness coming from the animatronics from the bottom of the stage looking up at them. Freddy stared straight ahead, his mouth still hanging open as if someone had got him to shut up mid-song. Bonnie was holding his guitar, though Mike could see that is was just a wooden cut-out with strings painted on and Chica looked like she was offering someone her plush cupcake that she always seemed to hold in her hand. The cupcake would have looked quite appealing if it didn't have giant, fake, plastic goggly eyes stuck onto it.

The three animatronics were still, Nikki told Mike it was because their programming switched modes depending on the time of day. At 6 in the morning, they automatically switched into 'party mode' for entertaining the patrons and at 12 at night, this mode was shut off in order to conserve power. All the lights were dimmer than during the day, too. More conserving power probably.

Mel seemed to like conserving things. Conserving power, conserving money, that sort of thing.

His footsteps echoed loudly through the empty halls as he left the stage behind, glancing over at Pirate Cove as he made his way to the office. The layout of the pizzeria was fairly simple: the dining hall led to everything. Not that he actually had to go anywhere. All he had to do was just sit in a chair and make sure nobody broke in or anything.

Though it wasn't like there was much of value in here, save some smelly animatronics.

This time, he entered the office through the right-hand door, stopping by the restrooms. This was going to be a long night.

Both doors had a button for the doors to close and for a light to go on outside. Mike had just sat down in the swivel chair when the phone began to ring.

It was red in colour, sitting perilously close to the edge of the table which didn't come as a surprise, pretty much the entire surface of the desk was covered in useless junk. Mike gathered up a large pile of drawings and dropped them on the ground beside the desk, scattering them across the floor before moving the phone away from the edge and pressing the 'speaker' button.

" _Hello_ , _hello?"_  Phone Guy's pre-recorded voice filled the office, " _Um, I wanted to record a message for you to help you get settled in on your first night. Um, I actually worked in that office before you. I'm finishing off my last week right now, as a matter of fact._ "

Mike instantly zoned out. He was anticipating a long while of this guy introducing himself. He wasn't interested.

The entire room was about five by five metres, not as much room as he would have hoped. He experimentally pressed the left door button and the it slid shut. Leaving it closed, he wandered back to his seat, swivelling around a few times to keep himself entertained as Phone Guy read out an introductory greeting from the company. He sighed.

This was going to be a long night.

He stood up and looked at the pictures pinned onto the walls. Some were recent, the paper they were drawn on unblemished save the crayon illustrations. Others were older, with worn paper and the pictures faded. Some had to be decades old. Mike knew this place had been around for a while, but he wasn't certain how long exactly.

Mike was just observing a picture that he couldn't tell if it was Chica wearing a top hat or some kind of golden version of Freddy when he suddenly picked up on what the Phone Guy was saying.

" _So just be aware, the characters do tend to wander a bit..._ "

Wander? Mel had said nothing about them wandering. Mike hesitantly made his way back to the desk and sat down.

Phone Guy went on, " _Uh, they're left in some kinda free roaming mode at night. Um... Something about their servers locking up if they get turned off too long. I mean, they used to be able to walk around during the day and all but then there was the Bite of '87. Y-yeah, it's- it's amazing the human body can live without a frontal lobe, y'know?_ "

Ok, so the animatronics were allowed to walk around the pizzeria after dark. No biggie, it's not like they could do anything to Mike. I mean, they're made to entertain little kids for crying out loud!

" _Um, I think I should tell you a bit about safety here._ "

Mike rolled his eyes, safety? The worst that could probably happen with these things in free roaming mode was one falling on him by accident.

" _There's only really one risk here, which is because the animatronics wander around, they'll most likely find you in your office and um... Y'know, in the dark, they might not recognise you as a human being. They'll probably think you're an animatronic endoskeleton without its suit on."_

Uh-huh. So?

" _And, uh, since it's against the rules here at Freddy Fazbear's for a bare endoskeleton to wander around the pizzeria at any time, they would er, probably try and forcefully stuff you into an animatronic suit._ "

Ok, now it was starting to get a little interesting. Mike smirked and leaned forward to look down at the phone. Getting put into a costume didn't sound too bad. Kind of cute, in fact.

" _A-and, well, that doesn't sound that bad except for the fact that these suits aren't designed for fit a human inside them and so they're all filled with wires, crossbeams and stuff. Especially around the facial area._ "

Alright, this had gotten weird quickly. Mike couldn't help but check outside the right hall, straining his eyes to see into the darkness. Nothing.

" _So um yeah, you could imagine how that would cause a bit of... Discomfort._ "

Phone Guy paused.

" _And death._ " he added for good measure, " _The only parts of you that are likely to ever see the light of day again w-would probably be your eyeballs and teeth when they pop out the front of the mask._ " Mike heard Phone Guy laugh nervously.

He stared at the little red phone on the desk with wide eyes as as Phone Guy went on, " _Uh, yeah, th-they don't really tell you these things when you sign up. But hey, first day should be a breeze! Um, before I go-_ "

"What now?" Mike said aloud. Phone Guy's words were making him unnecessarily paranoid.

" _\- just remember to check your cameras and only close the doors if you **really** have to. You've gotta conserve power - and I don't mean that because it'll save Mel money - if you run out of power, whatever lights are still on will switch off. And um, Freddy becomes a lot more active in the dark and he'll be at your office in no time. Um, using the cameras also uses power._ "

Mike's eyes slowly trailed to the left door, which had been shut almost the entire time Phone Guy was talking. He hastily pressed the button to open it again, exposing himself to the dark corridor. 

" _So yeah, I-I'll leave another message for you tomorrow._ "

What? He wasn't leaving Mike now after claiming there were a bunch of homicidal robots on the loose! Who the hell did Phone Guy think he was?

" _Er yeah, good night._ " Phone Guy abruptly hung up, leaving Mike in silence.

It took a second for Mike to react, switching on the TV and punching at random keys on the keyboard to try and control what cameras he could see through. He wildly flicked through them before finally finding the camera aimed at the stage. He breathed a sign of relief when he saw Freddy, Bonnie and Chica still standing where he had left them. He switched the monitor off, content.

It took him a minute or so to fully calm down. A kid's pizzeria couldn't house a trio of murderous robots, not without someone finding out. This place was closing up, but not because anybody had died here or anything. It was bankrupt and unable to keep the premises clean, as Mel had told him, so they were closing before the Health Department could come to shut down the entire franchise for good. Mike's week working there would be the entire restaurant's last week in business.

And how would people not notice some empty animatronic suits with their eyeballs hanging out of the sockets, has Phone Guy had so nicely put it? Wouldn't someone smell a bunch of dead corpses lying around? It wasn't as if the pizzeria was too big, and if the animatronics ever needed their suits to be changed someone would find a dead body in it real quick.

He tried to think of that, but he couldn't get Phone Guy's ominous words out of his head. To reassure himself once more, he switched the monitor back on.

Bonnie was gone.

 _No big deal, no big deal..._ Mike thought to himself, trying to steady his racing heart. So what if the animatronics moved around? Who says that meant that the part about them possibly going to try and kill him his true, too? It was extremely unlikely.

All the same, Mike switched screens to the dining hall in order to find Bonnie. The purple rabbit was standing in the dining area among the tables.

He was fine, the animatronics were just wandering. Mike switched the screen off.

He was safe. Nothing was going to happen to him.

If this place was unsafe, the management would have to warn him beforehand. What did these people have to hide? Mel looked friendly enough, Mike couldn't believe she was the kind of person who would hide a bunch of murders over the course of several years. What he could believe was that Phone Guy could be playing some kind of joke on him. Wasn't it common for coworkers to do that to each other? This place looked creepy in the dark, especially with the security footage constantly covered in static. The animatronics looked even worse silent, unmoving and covered in shadow. It would have been very temping to just put in something about them wanting to kill you to spook the next night watch guard.

It was apparent: the biggest threat he had was dying of boredom.

With no Phone Guy to keep him occupied, Mike was left by himself. He really wished he had brought something to do. He checked his wristwatch:  **1:02**. God, he had to stay here five more hours. Despite the fact that he barely read anything, he was almost beginning to be desperate for at least a book. But all there was to read was an instruction manual on how the fan on the desk worked and a pile of dirty exercise books with torn and faded covers. One was labelled  _Staff of Freddy Fazbear's Pizza, 1985-1993_ , the other had no title and was filled with cartoonish drawings of the animatronics, one getting a little too explicit for Mike's liking involving Chica. He closed the book and tossed both into the corner. If one bored him and the other mildly disgusted him, he really had no use for them.

He switched the monitor back on, seeing checking on the animatronics as the only option for entertainment he had left.

Bonnie was gone from the dining area and wasn't in any of the halls.  _That's fine._ Mike thought, though his eyes kept darting from door to door and back to the screen. Bonnie had to be  _somewhere_. Maybe he had returned to the stage? He changed the camera to the stage cam. Bonnie wasn't there, Freddy was staring straight at the camera Chica was missing, too.

Chica was in the dining area now, but  _where was Bonnie_? Not the dining area, not the bathrooms, not in either of the halls or the supply closet. Mike was starting to panic when he switched to the backstage camera.

Looking at the screen, Bonnie was standing in the doorway of backstage. Either someone had left the door open or it had somehow known how to open the door itself. Mike figured it was the former, why would a performing robot need to be programmed how to open doors?

It suddenly hit him how ridiculous his train of thoughts had become. He was trying to find a way to entertain himself in the world's most boring job, not worrying about bunnies that could open doors, for the love of God!

All the same, he kept the camera focused on the backstage a little while longer. In the darkness, the place looked creepier than it had the previous week when he had seen it during the day. He could see the spare animatronic heads lining the shelves, dusty with old age. He peered at the five animatronic suits, didn't Phone Guy say the eyeballs would pop out the front? Mike could only make out one of the costume's faces and he could see no eyeballs.

Stupid Phone Guy. Did he really have to make up that cruel and unusual death thing to scare Mike?

He suddenly caught sight of something in the bottom left corner of the monitor. It read 87%.

87% of what?

It then struck him.

87% power left.

He switched the monitor off and double checked the doors and door lights were off. His watch read **2:58**. He wasn't even halfway through the night and he had already somehow wasted a good portion of the electricity he had been given. He had to conserve power. He couldn't have the power shut off. If he did, Freddy would be here in minutes and-

Hang on.

Mike sighed and flopped down into the swivel chair. Freddy was not going to come and murder him once the lights switched off. Hadn't he just established that Phone Guy was playing some kind of joke on him? A dumb joke.

He went to the corner where he had thrown the two old exercise books and grabbed the one that the previous guards had drawn in. He skipped flicked through them until he found a blank page. He grabbed a blunt pencil from a mug on the desk and doodled a picture of a guy with a phone for a head that kept ringing while he tried to talk about killer teddy bears, bunny rabbits and baby chickens.

It looked awful, Mike had never been much of an artist. All the same, it made him feel a bit better. He left the book and the pencil on the desk as he checked the cameras again.

Freddy was still on the stage, Chica was outside the toilets and Bonnie was in the left hall leading to Mike's office.

He stared at the left door as if expecting Bonnie to pop out at any moment. He turned the light on and stuck his head out. Through the darkness, he could just make out Bonnie's silhouette in the gloom at the very end of the hall.

They stayed there for a few seconds, Mike staring at the animatronic and it felt like it was staring back. He finally shrank back inside the office and hit the button to close the door.

If he had felt paranoid before, it was nothing compared to now.

He went checked on Chica, who was still hanging around outside the toilets. Freddy still hadn't moved. Bonnie was gone from his position in the hall.

Mike flicked through the cameras, trying in vain to find the bunny animatronic somewhere. It wasn't in the hall, it hadn't returned the the stage, it might have been in the kitchen, which only had a blank screen and audio footage but the screen was silent.

Slowly, his head turned toward the shut door on his left. Pushing the swivel chair he was sitting on, he inched toward it and pressed his face against the window that led to the hall beside the door. He could see nothing but darkness.

There was no camera that showed right outside his door. His hand twitched toward the light switch. His finger rested on it for a moment before he closed his eyes and pressed it.

It didn't work. No light was seen behind his eyelids. Slowly, he cracked his eyes open and flew backward, a cry of astonishment torn from him.

Bonnie's face was pressed against the other side of the glass, its bulging eyes fixed on Mike.

He lay flat on his back, staring frozen at the animatronic. Its mouth parted in what looked like a leer as the dull hallway light flickered behind it.

It raised a large paw and tapped on the window.

He was barely aware of the fact he was screaming. Bonnie stood there, staring at him for what seemed like forever. Slowly, slowly it turned. Its footsteps seemed to shake the ground as it lumbered away.

* * *

He must have passed out after that. He woke up, his watch wrist in front of his face. It took him a few minutes to come fully to his senses.

He was in the office.

Freddy Fazbear's Pizza's office.

It was **5:36**.

His shift was almost over. To think, he had slept through most of it.

It took him another minute to remember the other animatronics. He sat bolt upright to see the shut door and the hall light on. He punched the two buttons, switching the light on and opening up the door. He then darted over to the monitor, switching it on.

Bonnie and Freddy were in the dining area. He flicked through the other cameras, desperately trying to find Chica.

Where was she?

He hoped it was in the kitchens.

Please let it be the kitchens.

Something moaned right outside the office.

He wasted no time. He practically leapt across the office and froze in place right outside the doorway.

Chica's hulking figure was standing just a foot in front of him.

He slammed on the door button, separating the two of them and sank to the ground.

The already dim lights in the office flickered.

Mike's eyes widened. The power.

He'd left the left light on and door closed for over two hours, how much energy had that used up? He still had twenty minutes left before 6am.

7%

His heart sank. 

He switched of the monitor and triple checked that Chica wasn't behind the door before opening it. He didn't want to check how much power was left. All he could do was sit and stare at his watch, ears straining for any noises in the halls.

**5:40**

**5:44**

**5:50**

He wasn't going to make it.

**5:52**

The minutes seemed to drag on forever.

**5:53**

Was that footsteps he heard in the right hall?

**5:55**

He could hear a chime playing somewhere in the building coming from the kitchens. It sounded a lot like the Toreador March.

**5:56**

Those had to be footsteps.

**5:57**

There was a dead silence. Any one of them could be right outside his door. He slowly turned his head to the right and then to the left. Hardly daring to breathe, he could see nothing in the dark.

But that didn't mean nothing was there.

Were those eyes? Staring at him behind the window? Maybe it was just a reflection.

_They're not going to hurt you. They're not going to hurt you._

He repeated those words over and over in his head.

_They're not going to hurt you. They're not going to hurt you._

A creak sounded right next to him.

Freddy was right beside him. He couldn't move.

The bear stared down at him with unblinking plastic eyes and all Mike could do was stare back.

Phone Guy's message echoed in his head.

They don't recognise you as a human being.

They'll try and fix you.

They'll kill you.

Slowly.

You'll bleed out.

You'll die alone. Surrounded by the joys and love of children.

But so, so alone.

The lights flicked and died.

The power had run out.

 _You'll be back_.

It sounded like a little boy. Mike opened his eyes. Freddy launched itself at him-

Mike closed his eyes. He didn't want to die.

But what could he do? He didn't have the strength to fight anymore.

He expected impact, pain, to be dragged down the hall.

Nothing came.

Nothing but the sound of the Westminster Chimes echoing through the building.

Freddy was inches away from Mike's face. He straightened up and plodded out of the office.

It was 6am.

The voice remained in his head, though.

_You'll be back._

No he wouldn't. No way in hell he'd be back in here. He dragged himself to his feet, clinging onto the desk for support before collapsing into the chair. He fumbled to turn on the monitor and flicked through the cameras until he reached the one at the stage. All three animatronics were standing in their respective places as if they hadn't moved at all.

"I'm not coming back." he snarled at the screen.

The animatronics seemed to grin at him.

 _You'll be back_.


	3. Purple Eyes

Mike leaned over the bathroom sink, staring into the mirror. For the first time in ages, he couldn't sleep. 

Last night had been... Disturbing to say the least. 

Tomorrow, he was going to go back to that place, walk right up to Mel, look her straight in the face and tell her he wasn't going to hang around her and her creepy killer robots. She could find someone else to take the dumb shift because he wasn't having any of it.

_Tomorrow? Why not today? Go there now!_

One more night wouldn't kill him. Now he knew what to expect, he won't faint again. God, he felt so stupid passing out on the floor like that. All because a giant bunny was tapping on the window! Just the memory of it mad him feel like such a pathetic loser. And that was just his first night!

No, now he knew what was going on. He knew what to look out for, nothing could surprise him. Whether or not they intended on killing him, Freddy, Chica and Bonnie weren't going to get inside his office anytime soon. He had the security cameras to show him where the animatronics were at any time and even if they did get near him, he had the doors. Those things were made out of steel, there was no way those things could get past  _that_.

It would only be six hours. Now that he actually knew what he was doing, he wasn't going to make a fool out of himself by falling over and fainting again. He'd quit tomorrow. He just wanted to go back one more time. If he survived his first night, he could survive his second.

He opened the medicine cabinet, searching for the sleeping pills. He usually didn't have to resort to using them but he liked his sleep, and he wasn't letting some crappy kids' restaurant stopping him from getting any.

* * *

_He was back in the pizzeria. But he wasn't alone, there were others. He just had to find them._

_He called their names, searching the dark rooms for any trace of them. Under tables, in the toilet cubicles, even taking a peek into the backstage. Were they playing a dumb joke on him by hiding? If they were, it wasn't funny._

_This place looked really scary at night._

_Just as he was shouting at them to come on out, his ears picked up the sound of footsteps. Finally. They'd come out at last. Following them took him back into the dining area, toward the Kid's Cove. He called out again, hoping for a reply that didn't come._

_This was starting to get stupid, he knew someone were there. Why wouldn't they come out? He climbed onto the stage and pulled back the curtain._

_The animatronic stared blankly at him with its empty plastic eyes. Its teeth had been dulled from age, his face was just centimetres away from them. But he wasn't afraid. Freddy's friends were his friends._

_He let the curtain fall back, hiding the animatronic from view and climbed down from the stage. He called out again, not expecting an answer._

_"Help..."_

_His blood turned to ice. He knew that voice._

_It was coming from nearby. Under one of the party tables._

_He got down on all fours and crawled through across the floor. The cold tiles chilled him as he slowly made his way toward the source of the noise._

_He stopped at the table, hearing faint breathing coming from behind the table cloth. He reached out and pulled the table cloth up to see behind it._

_A kid, his friend was lying on their side, half curled into the fetal position. Their brown hair was red with blood, a dent caving in the side of their head. Blood trickled our of their mouth and nose and their eyes were wide and staring._

_"He's... Gonna get ya..."_

_They stopped breathing. Even then, their eyes were still staring at him._

_He couldn't do anything before he heard footsteps again._

_Without thinking, he dived under the table. He didn't want to look down at the kid lying next to him._

_The footsteps came closer._

_Closer._

_Closer._

_Then they stopped._

_Had they heard him? He held his breath. He could just see under the tablecloth at a pair of shoes a few metres away. Time seemed to crawl on before the sound of footsteps started up again, fading away into the darkness of the pizzeria._

_"Hey, wake up!" he hissed, shaking the still child. "He's gonna come back any second, we have to get out of here!"_

_They didn't even blink._

_"If you don't come, I'm leaving you behind!"_

_No answer._

_He peered out from under the table cloth to make sure the coast was clear before crawling out. He looked back under the table. "Last chance to come with me." he said. They remained still. "Fine, suit yourself."_

_Where were the others? Maybe Freddy and his friends were looking after them. He had no idea where Freddy would be now, but he knew where the security guard was. He'd accidentally wandered into the office once and the guard was very nice about it._

_Yes, the guard could help. He just had to find out how to get to the office without the scary man finding him._

_He could see the hall ahead of him. Sucking in a deep breath, he gathered his courage and ran._

_The footsteps followed him._

_He screamed, forcing himself to go faster. The office was right ahead!_

_He could make it!_

_The last few metres felt like hours as he sprinted toward the wide open doorway._

_He burst in, expecting the security guard to jump out of the swivel seat in the middle of the small room and come to his aid. But there was nobody there._

_Somebody was behind him._

_The man was leaning against the doorway, his purple eyes wide and glittering with excitement. In his hand, he held a bloody hammer, strands of hair and tiny fragments of bone stuck to the reddened metal. _A grin split his face in two.__

_All he said was two words. "You can't."_

_He died a few hours later, bleeding out in the hallway right outside the office. His body finally stopped twitching. His legs had been shattered first, then his arms. The Purple Guy took his time in breaking his bones, laughing as blood flecked his face and purple shirt. With every gasp, he could feel the shards of his shattered ribcage piercing his bruised and ruptured organs. Every mouthful of blood coughed up digging them deeper and deeper._

_As his vision grew dark, the low lights reflected off the golden badge on the man's chest._

**_SECURITY_ **

* * *

He lay there, staring up at the ceiling. For a few seconds, he could still feel the agony as he wished that he would just hurry up and die already.

He half hoped that the nightmare had something to do with the sleeping pills he'd taken, maybe it was some kind of side effect? He tried to convince himself for a minute or so before he gave in. He wasn't fooling anybody, even himself.

 _Great job, Mike!_  He thought to himself.  _A kid-friendly pizzeria has made you completely paranoid and given you nightmares in under 24 hours! You should be proud!_

Glancing at the clock by his bed, it was 10am. He'd only slept two hours. Usually, he would be used to having limited sleep on top of his college work but since the break had started, he'd changed his entire sleep schedule. This often included spending more time asleep than awake, only getting up to play video games in the lounge room, eat or go to the bathroom.

Since he didn't want to go back to sleep in case his mind would assault him with more nightmares featuring his new workplace, he had to resort to consuming large amounts of caffeine to prevent him from falling asleep in the first place. His mother didn't even question why he was in the kitchen for half an hour, drinking four cups of coffee.

All she said was " _I don't agree with your career choice, Michael_."

He responded with the usual: "I'm an adult, I can do what I want."

During that time, he wondered if he should return to the pizzeria. Freddy Fazbear was all that was on his mind, the restaurant, the position he had and more importantly, the animatronics. The way they stared at the camera as if they knew there was someone on the other side, watching them. The way Bonnie had almost glared at him through the office window. Maybe it _was_  just the bad lighting of the place, but Mike was starting to get a little sick of blaming everything he had seen and thought on the light or Phone Guy.

He wanted to go back. Maybe while he was there, he could quit. Or ask for a pay raise. They were paying him the minimum wage, if his job sucked he might as well get payed a little more for doing it.

Since he had nothing better to do that day, he might as well. It could help him think a little less of that place and hopefully get rid of all those messed-up nightmares he was starting to get. He grabbed a bag and shoved his purple work shirt and his wallet into it and shouted across the house to his mother that he was going out.

Freddy Fazbear's was located right in the poorest part of town, a light among the dark. It was strange to see such a bright and colourful place surrounded by deteriorating houses and abandoned shops, doors boarded up and windows smashed, the walls scrawled with unreadable graffiti.

The only customers were a family of four, the younger child pointing and laughing at the animatronics while the older sibling looked as if he would rather be anywhere else. The parents seemed to be enjoying themselves, talking with one of Mike's coworkers.

Another child was standing right by the stage, Mike wasn't sure whether or not they were part of the family who were dining there. It was a little girl of about 7 years with curly blonde hair, staring with wide eyes up at the singing animatronics. Her arms were hidden by the large, fluffy jumper she was huddled up in.

He approached the stage carefully, as if any one of the animatronics could jump down and bite his head off. He stood right at the base of the stage, next to the little girl, staring up at them like she was.

She spoke, startling Mike a little, "I like that one!" she pointed up at Chica, giggling, "She has a cupcake. Mummy says I should stop eating cupcakes 'cause they'll make me fat but I don't care. They taste good."

Mike nodded, not taking his eyes off the animatronics, "Yeah, they do. Follow your dreams, kiddo." he mumbled.

"I get to come here a lot." she continued, "Daddy and mummy take me twice a week and sometimes three when I'm being good. Once, I was allowed to meet Chica and she gave me a hug!"

"Doesn't she smell kind of weird?" Mike couldn't help but question. He was half amused by the simple conversation he was having. It wasn't every day that he got to talk about something that wasn't college, work or video games. For some reason, it felt refreshing to have small talk with someone so innocent.

The little girl grinned, "Nope! They're all cuddly and they're really nice! They love to play and party! I've had three parties here, more than  _any_ of my other friends. Though they all say they love this place more than me but they're wrong."

"So you come here a lot?" he didn't expect a place in one of the dodgiest part of town with a failing reputation to have many repeat customers. But from the look on her face, Mike knew that this little girl wasn't lying.

"I pretty much live here!" she boasted proudly, "When I grow up, I want to work here!"

 _Yeah, good luck with that._ Mike thought,  _This place is closing down soon, thank God._

Instead of voicing his sour thoughts, he just said, "You go do that, just don't take the night shift."

"The what?"

"Nothing." he said, quickly changing the subject, "So you like Chica?"

She jumped up and down in excitement, her golden curls bouncing, "Chica is really nice! My friends got to meet her friends, too! Zach says that they'll protect us so nobody can hurt you in here!"

No one can hurt you? That was cute. He almost wanted to believe her.

"So, Freddy's got magic powers?" he teased.

She looked at him as if he was stupid, "No, the Puppet does." she said as if it was the most obvious thing in the world.

Mike's eyes darted back to the stage as if another animatronic would suddenly appear among the others. What Puppet? Was there a fourth animatronic he didn't know of? Was what she was talking about even an animatronic? Was it an imaginary friend?

Spending time around this place was starting to make him paranoid. He could live without that.

Before he could ask, the little girl was talking again, "Who's your favourite in Freddy's band?"

"Freddy." he said immediately.

"Why?"

He looked back up at the animatronics, Freddy seemed to pause and look at him. Nausea suddenly swept through him.

It was a few moments before he noticed that the girl was staring expectantly at him, "I have no idea." he said, unable to think up an idea as to why he would like it.

"So do  _you_ come here often?"

He didn't like the way Freddy appeared to be staring at him. He didn't like anything about these animatronics at all.

"I do now." he told her, "I've just starting working as a security guard."

She gave him a funny look and then laughed, "You're funny, mister!" she giggled, "You don't look like a guard! You're not a purple guy!"

Mike felt his body stiffen and tried to suppress the memories of his nightmare earlier that day, "What's that supposed to mean?" he asked a little quickly as he attempted to shove images of purple eyes and bloodstained security badges out of his mind.

"People who work here wear purple shirts." the girl said, "I know because I want to learn everything about this place that I can. I want to work here." she looked a little proud of herself, "Are you doing a good job at being a security guard?"

He sighed, "I sure hope so." he answered.

"Make sure to keep this place secure, then mister! Keep my friends safe, please!"

He couldn't help but smile at the little girl's enthusiasm, "Will do." he promised.

"Mike!"

He turned to see Mel approaching him, her ever-present grin spread across her face.

"What are you doing here? You're seven hours early for your shift!"

Mike turned to the little girl to see she had disappeared. He heard a member of the staff behind him offering free cupcakes behind him and instantly knew where she had wandered off to. "I was just talking with this little kid right here."

She looked at him funny, "Are you feeling ok?"

He tried to look as 'ok' as possible, "Yeah, sure I am! Why do you ask?"

"Well," she said, her voice slow and cautious as if she was breaking dangerous news to a severely mentally unstable patient, "you've just been standing here, looking from Freddy to the spot next to you for the past ten minutes. The only patrons that have been here all day was this family here." she gestured to the family at the table, who were just finishing their meal.

Mike scanned the dining area for the girl, she couldn't have gotten far. But she was nowhere to be seen.

"You haven't seen a little girl here?" he questioned, she had to be here somewhere, "About seven, kinda chubby, she had short curly blonde hair and a big yellow jacket?" maybe she was hiding under a table? She was nowhere near the waitress trying to offer cupcakes to the dining family.

If Mel had been giving him a weird look before, it was nothing compared to now.

"Are you sure you're alright, Mike?"

"Not really." he answered honestly, "I didn't sleep too much this morning."

He couldn't have hallucinated the little girl, he'd slept even worse many times before without seeing and hearing things. But, where could she have gone? And Mel was telling him that he had been talking to no one for ten minutes, she had no reason to lie to him.

So if there was no little girl, who  _was_ he talking to?

Mel took him by the arm, gently as if she was guiding a wounded and frightened animal to safety, "You should go back home and rest if you're not feeling well." she said softly, "You'll have another long night tonight and you wouldn't want to be tired."

There was an edge to her words. Mike's thoughts flittered back to last night. The animatronics watching him through the cameras as he tracked their movements. Phone Guy's ominous warning. There was something very wrong with this pizzeria.

Did Mel know about it? Surely not. If she did, she wouldn't have kept it open. Or someone would have closed it down a lot sooner.

They had reached the door and Mel held it open for him. He turned back one last time to stare at the animatronics.

They grinned back.


	4. Night Two: Pirates and Ice

Mike came back six hours later.

It was about half an hour before his shift started and the animatronics would begin their wandering mode, but that didn't stop him from jumping whenever he caught sight of anything large in the shadows. Whether it was just a chair, a potted plant or actually an animatronic, still stationary on their show stage.

It was only then when he noticed just how much he was looking up at them these past few days. They were probably used to having little kids gawk up at them instead of adults. Those perpetual grins of theirs probably appealed more to a younger audience. Anybody else would find them terrifying.

Without looking away from them, he shuffled down the dining area, past the starry curtain that hid Pirate Cove from view to the corridor. When he had finally reached it, he turned and hurried to the office.

He didn't like the way this place made him double check that every shadow wasn't hiding something that wanted to get him.

For some reason, he felt flooded with relief when he reached his office, as if he was entering some kind of safe haven where nothing could harm him. He wanted to believe that. Like there was some kind of magic that kept him safe, like what the little girl had claimed there was with her puppet friend.

Something cracked as he stepped into the office and he looked down to see that he had trodden on somebody's glasses. He picked them up, shards from one of the shattered lenses dropping onto the floor. The frame had been badly bent, on the verge of snapping entirely. The one intact lens was coated in a thin layer of dust, it had been there a while. He had probably just walked right by it on his first night. He wondered why nobody had picked it up yet, it had obviously been lying on the ground for several days. Surely, a cleaner or someone would should have found it. But then as he looked around at the messy office, he doubted that the place had ever been cleaned before.

He set the glasses down on the desk, right under a massive poster of Freddy, Bonnie and Chica that read 'CELEBRATE' in big golden letters. The poster itself was framed with crayon drawings of the animatronics and small children, all labelled in colourful printed words reading 'MY FUN DAY!'.

The was one of Bonnie popping out of a gift box while a little boy cheered, Freddy serving a happy child cake, a pink fox playing with a group of smiling children, Chica and a little girl making cake-

He looked at the last picture twice, staring hard at it. He recognised the large fluffy jumper, curly hair and love for that certain animatronic. The girl in the picture was the splitting image of the girl he had seen that day in the pizzeria. Except of course, that this girl was made out of paper colourful marker.

No surprise that the picture was there though, she said that she had many parties at Freddy Fazbear's. It appeared that the staff kept most of the discarded drawings the kids made.

He took out the pin that was hanging the drawing up on the wall and took a closer look at it. Like all the pictures, it was dusty but there was another thing that had caught his attention. In the bottom right corner, the date read  _1987_.

1987? That was six years ago! If this was really the same girl, she would have been a year old when she'd drawn it.

 _Maybe they're not the same person._ He thought doubtfully before trying to put more certainty into his thoughts,  _No, it_ can't _be the same person. There are plenty of people with curly blonde hair that could have been wearing a yellow jumper that came here in 1987. Calm down, damn it!_

He pinned the picture back on the wall and checked his watch. Ten minutes until his shift officially started. He wasn't going to check the cameras just yet, the animatronics would still be on stage.

Wanting to shake off the urge to forget his rationality and switch on the monitor, he picked up the sketchbook and pencil and tried to doodle a picture of the animatronics. He was aiming to make them look goofy, but he overdid the lining around their eyes and made them look like three sleep-deprived zombies.

He sighed and flicked through the older pictures that the previous security guards had drawn onto the pages. Thinking about it, the sketchbook was a lot like the pictures drawn by the child patrons that hung around the restaurant. The only difference was that those were publicly displayed while the ones drawn by the night guards were left in a moulding exercise book.

 _And with good reason..._ Mike thought as he glimpsed a very inappropriate picture of the animatronics doing some not-so kid friendly things. He stopped suddenly.

The pages that he had reached were close to the end, where he had chosen to draw his own things. But he had barely looked at these.

At first glance, it just looked like Freddy sitting down. But when he looked at it properly, Freddy wasn't sitting. He was slumped, like a dead corpse that someone had tried to sit in an upright position. Its mouth hung open lazily, head tipped to the side, top hat askew and its signature microphone it used to 'sing' was hanging limply from its open paw.

But the most unsetting thing about the picture wasn't how lifelike it was, almost like a black and white photograph on the lined paper. He could see that some places on Freddy's body were heavily shaded, like a dark liquid had been seeping out from the seams in his suit. The eyes were drawn in the wrong place, hanging down on its nose and looking in different directions despite the fact that the eyes sockets were clearly drawn.

It took a second for Mike to notice the optic nerves connected to the eyeballs, travelling into the suit. He caught sight of another set of teeth inside the suit's mouth.

_The only parts of you that are likely to ever see the light of day again would probably be your eyeballs and teeth when they pop out the front of the mask..._

The next four pages were scribbles, twisted versions of the animatronics drawn with a shaking hand and broken, blunt pencil. Freddy grinning, eyes hanging out of his head. Chica with a Glasgow smile. Bonnie tearing somebody apart. A fox peeking behind a bloodstained curtain. A marionette puppet tangled in its strings, crying and laughing as blood covered its face. Teeth, claws, mechanical parts, incoherent writing was scrawled across the paper.

Mike almost jumped out of his seat when the phone began to ring.

His shift had started.

He shut the book, not wanting to look into its contents and pressed the 'speaker' button.

" _Uh, hello? Hello?_ "

"Hello? Hello?" Mike mimicked, glaring at the phone and then each of the doors in turn. He wasn't even sure why, maybe he just needed something or someone to take his fear out on and the old red phone was the only other thing apart from him making any noise.

Unable to hear him, Phone Guy's pre-recorded message went on. " _Um, if you're hearing this and made it to day two... Well, congrats!_ "

"Yeah, yay." Mike muttered, getting up to stick his head of the left door to check if anything was creeping up on him. Those pictures in the exercise book had left unsettling images burned into his mind.

" _I-I won't talk as long as last time because you'll need to concentrate._ " Phone Guy continued, " _I noticed a while ago that Freddy and his friends tend to get more active as the week goes on. You might want to check the cameras now, actually, I really don't want to distract you and get yourself killed or something - I mean, n-not that there's really anything to worry about._ " he added the last bit a little too quickly to sound convincing.

Mike switched on the screen and stared at the show stage. The three animatronics were unmoving on their shadowed raised platform. He switched the monitor off.

" _You mostly only need to worry at all about Bonnie and Chica mostly, I guess. Freddy doesn't really seem to move around that much except in the dark when all the power's out..._ " his voice went silent for a moment, " _And um, so use the door lights and the doors if you really have to - which is really unlikely - but I'll just tell you that anyway. I said it before, nothing to worry about._ "

Mike sighed.

" _And er, be sure to check Pirate Cove. The animatronic that stays there starts off a bit closer to you so there's not much distance for him to cover..._ "

He stiffened. There was a fourth animatronic?

He flicked through the cameras until he found Pirate Cove. The camera was pointed at the closed curtain, no sign that anything existed beyond it.

"...  _He's also pretty fast at getting around. His name is Foxy. He was always my favourite before I worked here..._ " Phone Guy's voice trailed away for a moment before it quickly started up again, " _So um, yeah. Check the cameras, check the doors, check on the stage, check on Foxy... Just- just check everything I guess. I-i mean, n-n-not that they're really gonna kill you, that's... That's extremely unlikely. It's- it's only happened t-to three people before my shift and- and I'm fine, y-you'll be fine..._ " _  
_

He was stammering even worse than before and didn't sound convincing at all. It seemed to Mike that he was trying to convince himself more than the listener.

" _A-anyway, I'm sure you've got everything under control!_ " he laughed nervously, " _Uh, I'll leave you another message tomorrow, I guess!_ "

 _Click_.

The office was once again silent.

There was something nagging Mike, something about this new animatronic - Foxy. It had never been mentioned to him and none of the posters showed any more than the three that were on the stage. Was this 'Foxy' thing new? Old? Judging by its name, it was a fox. Come to think of it...

His eyes travelled over the children's drawings on the walls. He noticed that although most of the pictures were of the three animatronics that he knew, a few of them had that fox in them. He remembered the first day he had come here, to ask for the job. Didn't the sign outside Pirate Cove say 'Foxy is out of order'?

If this animatronic was indeed out of order, there was no reason for Mike to concern himself about it. Maybe it was still active when Phone Guy was recording this message, which was almost a week ago. Who was to say this information wasn't outdated?

He turned the monitor back on to check on the stage in time to see a dark figure disappearing offscreen. Bonnie was on the move.

He flicked to the dining area to find the bunny still near the stage. Quickly, he went back to the stage camera to make sure neither Chica not Freddy had managed to move while the cameras were on Bonnie. He flicked back to Bonnie to find the animatronic had moved a few metres.

To be sure, he checked on Pirate Cove. The curtain was still closed, unmoved.

He switched off the monitor and glanced uneasily at the wide open doorways. He felt too exposed in here, yet it was the safest place he could be. The buttons to close the doors seemed way too far away for his liking despite the office's small size.

In order to last the night, all he had to do was check the cameras every now and again, check the spots right outside his doors and try his best not to panic when one of those freaks appeared in front of his face.

Mike checked his watch, he was just ten minutes into his shift. He had plenty of power left and knew where each of the animatronics were. He'll check the screens every five minutes or so for just a few seconds. That way, he'll be able to keep an eye on everything without wasting all the power before the night ended.

The entire pizzeria was as quiet as a graveyard, save the soft humming of the power that could barely be heard. Mike listened hard, as if the peace will be broken by the sound of footsteps but he heard nothing.

He turned the monitor back on, Bonnie was still standing in the exact spot Mike had seen him last and the other two animatronics hadn't budged. Just to calm his nerves, he checked on Pirate Cove.

Still nothing.

Mike sighed and turned the screen off. This night was beginning to be disappointingly uneventful. Didn't Phone Guy just say that the animatronics got more active as the week progressed? He hoped that wasn't true. He'd had enough trouble on the first night.

Maybe everything will stay this calm for the rest of the night.

If only that would really happen.

Bonnie had disappeared from the dining area. It wasn't in the backstage or supply closet. Had it gone back to the stage- No, now Chica was gone. Freddy was uncomfortably close to the screen, its large eyes completely shadowed. It was almost as if it could see right through the camera and knew Mike was watching it.

He flicked to the west hall camera to find Bonnie standing in the middle of the hall.

"Found you, you furry freak." Mike smirked. Now he knew exactly where all the animatronics were, Bonnie was in the hall, Chica was in the dining area, Freddy was still on the stage and-

What was that sound?

It was like singing, if you could call it that. A slow tune that would have sounded quite sincere and sorrowful if it didn't sound as if it had been created by somebody dragging their nails over a chalkboard while sobbing floated through the building. It was coming from the left door, somewhere along or at the end of the west hall.

Could it be Bonnie? He turned the screen back on, but the bunny animatronic wasn't moving. The song went on.

Chica had moved to outside the girls toilets, her head turned as if she was looking up at the camera.

What about Freddy? The bear was still glaring at the screen.

Glaring?

It took Mike a moment to realise that's what Freddy was doing. He had no idea the animatronics could change their dumb grins, but Freddy's stare was undoubtably full of hate. Its eyes were narrow, the dark turning them black save two tiny white pinpricks of light that pierced the darkness, freezing Mike to his seat. He had no idea that something could ever - that something  _would_  ever - look at him with such disgust and fury in its eyes, making him feel as if he had committed an irredeemable act. As if he had done something to bring this thing that stared at him agony.

Like he was hiding behind a screen from an abomination he had created. He had done something, something that destroyed everything and he had loved it. He had loved every minute of it. The pain he had caused - he was scared of it at first. Could he really do this? Did he really _have_ to? Would he get away with it? But the first taste, it had been to quick. He relished the next one, taking longer to go in for the kill. He stared into their eyes, eyes of fear and indescribable pain before finally ending their suffering.

They'd seen the whole thing, but they couldn't do anything. The guard didn't do anything. They were all alone as he picked them off one by one. Like a beast stalking its prey, toying with it before the hunt and leaving them to slowly die.

It had been fun, but it eventually had to come to an end. He had tried to make the final one last, but they too eventually passed, leaving him standing over a frail little broken body, blood on his hands, his face, in his hair, clotting it together. The shiny tiles were slippery with the blood pooling out from underneath the body, but he had to finish the job. He had to cover it all up. Nobody was to know it was him. That night had been fun, but it wouldn't have been worth it if he'd get caught.

Maybe he'll return another time?

That is, if this godforsaken place didn't get closed again. Or if those morons running the place would open it up again.

He had to leave quickly before anybody came in. It was almost 6am, the staff would arrive in about an hour. All he had to do was pin the murders on some innocent bystander, but he already had all that covered.

Carrying the bloody hammer in one hand, he wandered out of the kitchen, leaving the body behind him. Someone else could clean it up. Once in the hall, he had to step over another body. He walked by the bathroom, yet another body in there. Someone with their head smashed in was slumped against the door to the Parts and Services room.

A trail of blood ran like a still river across the floor, under a table as if somebody had tried to hide, dragging their body behind them and leaving behind a pool of slime like some kind of slug. He crouched down and held up the curtain just to look at his good work.

That was all five of them. Five hours of fun.

All the same, he couldn't shake off the feeling that somewhere, someone was watching him. This place always had that feel around it, he wasn't sure if anyone else got it too. But he could feel his skin crawl, as if some invisible person was right behind him, analysing every move he made. He turned, but nobody was there. He was all alone.

He made his way toward the stage, climbing up and pulling back the curtain.

Black eyes stared right back at him. White pinprick pupils staring straight into his soul.

But he wasn't on the stage, he was back in the office.

Freddy was gone.

Mike cursed, flicking through the screens in order to get his head back into reality while trying to hold back the bile that was rising in his throat.

He didn't even want to question what just happened.

Bonnie was a few metres closer to the office, almost offscreen from the camera that showed the top of the west hall. Chica was still at the bathrooms and Freddy was in the dining area.

As he flicked through them, he caught sight of Pirate Cove. It was then that he had noticed that the singing that stopped.

A face with a slender muzzle was peeking out from behind the starry curtain, its gaping maw hanging open to reveal a row of pointed gleaming white teeth. Scruffy red fur stuck out at odd angles, missing entirely in a few places. A dull metal hook for a hand held the curtain open. This pirate fox sure did look out of order, but that didn't make it look any less intimidating.

Had it been the one singing?

Foxy just stared right up at the camera, its face blank. Thank God. Mike didn't want whatever had happened with Freddy to happen again.

Breaking eye contact, he switched the screen off and checked his watch, surely it had been an hour or so-

12:15

 _What_? He must have completely zoned out when he'd looked into Freddy's eyes. It felt as if hours had passed, but the night was just beginning. 

He checked the power,  _94%_. Good.

He checked the cameras again, Chica hadn't budged, Bonnie hadn't moved, he just glimpsed Freddy, quickly switching screens as he didn't want to take a trip down Whatever-the-hell-that-was Lane and stopped at Pirate Cove, taking a little longer to look at Foxy. Even though the animatronic hadn't moved an inch, he didn't like the look of those teeth. Or that hook for the matter.

Switching the screen off, he stuck his head out of the left hall. He couldn't see Bonnie through the darkness. Hesitantly, he pressed the hall's light switch, illuminating the corridor. In the few seconds he had looked away from the camera, Bonnie had taken the opportunity to move uncomfortably close to the door. Though the bunny was still only about halfway down the hall, there was still only about six metres between it and him.

Mike considered closing the door. On one hand, Bonnie was too close for comfort and it was better to be safe than brutally killed and sorry. On the other hand, the bunny might take a while to get moving again and it might not even reach the office. It could always turn around and go back to the stage. He couldn't afford to waste all the power within the first half hour of the night.

He switched off the light and turned back to the screen. He wanted to check on Pirate Cove again. He wasn't even sure why, something about the new animatronic kept him on the edge of his seat. Turning the monitor back on, Pirate Cove lit up the screen.

Foxy had completely emerged from behind the curtain, revealing its tattered body. Its mouth still hung open, given it a slightly drunken look which would have looked pretty funny under different circumstances. Its pointy metal teeth were in clear view, almost as if it was about to take a bite out of its imaginary audience. It wore an eyepatch, though it was flicked upward so both eyes were exposed to glare at the camera. The hook on its hand was raised in an almost threatening manner like it was planning exactly how to kill whoever was watching it.

Just to stop looking at the fox animatronic, Mike switched to the camera closest to his left door. Bonnie was just on the screen, staring straight ahead. He flicked back to Pirate Cove.

The curtains had been thrown open. Foxy was nowhere in sight.

 _No problem, he's probably just in the hall._  Mike told himself, trying to ignore the sweat that was trickling down his neck.

He switched to the camera at the top of the hall.

Just in time to see Foxy sprinting across the screen.

"Oh  _SHIT_!"

He slammed his fist against the door button, pain shooting up his wrist. He just caught sight of Foxy in the doorway before the door slid shut.

 _That'll stop him, that'll stop_ -

_**BANG** _

_**BANG** _

_**BANG** _

A metallic screech sounded from behind the door as something heavy slammed against it.

Mike shrank away from the door, clinging onto his throbbing wrist. Surely it would hold? That thing couldn't get past it. Could it?

As quickly as it had started, the banging stopped. Behind the door, a rusty creaking and groaning sound was heard as the animatronic slunk back to its stage. Mike released a breath he didn't know he was holding.

He decided right then and there that out of all the animatronics, Foxy was by far his least favourite.

* * *

Fortunately, Foxy must have scared Bonnie away because when Mike checked again, it had returned to the stage. Foxy was back behind its curtain and Freddy was still on the stage, glaring up at the camera.

During the next hour, the animatronics didn't bother him. Though it was nice to not have a screaming robot jumping out at you from the darkness, Mike felt as if just the suspense could kill him.

If Foxy could run, could the others? None of the other animatronics so far had even tried to challenge the office doors, either. It seemed like the longer he stayed here, the more hostile the animatronics seemed. How would they act tomorrow night? What about his fifth night? Would he even come back for a fifth night?

He hated this place. After this night, he was leaving it behind forever.

But some part of him was drawn to it. It wasn't that he enjoyed it, nor that he found the risk exciting. For some reason, he felt as if he belonged here. As if this was the right place to be, he had to be there. He could almost here a voice in his head:  _We have a place for you here... We have a place for everyone here..._

He thought about Phone Guy, spending all those years working at the night shift. Had he felt drawn here, too? Had he felt as if he was part of the place. Part of the pizzeria. Part of the company. Part of the show.

If Phone Guy survived here for years and was still alive, Mike could survive five nights. And also still be alive afterwards, he supposed.

No, he didn't suppose. He knew. Kind of. He hoped. He had a feeling he might. He wanted to.

It was almost 2am, he had  _78%_ power left. He was doing much better than the previous night.

He checked Pirate Cove, a hook held the curtain open slightly. Mike glared at it and switched to the stage to see Bonnie and Freddy. He flicked through the cameras to find Chica.

Not on the stage, not in the dining area, not in the west hall, not in the east hall, not outside the toilets, not in the backstage, not in the supply closet, the audio feed in the kitchen was dead silent...

Without bothering to turn the light on to check, he punched the door button. He winced as his wrist stung. Maybe he shouldn't have hit the button so hard when Foxy was charging at his door, he was really starting to regret it now. He hoped he hadn't done any serious damage to it. He didn't think it was broken, he hadn't heard it crack but in the moment, he had been too preoccupied with Foxy to pay any attention to it.

For good measure, he switched the light on. Even though he expected it, he jumped when he saw Chica's large face looming right outside the window. It seemed to glare right through the door.

 _You're not getting in that easily._ Mike thought, turning the screen back on while he waited for Chica to leave.

Bonnie was still on the stage, Freddy had finally moved its furry butt to the dining area and Foxy had stuck his nose out from behind the curtain. From the dining area's camera, Mike could see Chica was on her way back to the stage.

He turned the screen off. Despite knowing more than on his previous night, he was left to guess a lot of what he had to do. Phone Guy of course had helped a little, but it would be a lot easier if he wasn't just a disembodied voice spending half his message reassuring Mike that there was absolutely nothing to worry about.

After checking the cameras once more to make sure none of the animatronics had gotten any closer, Mike left the desk and began to search the dark corner for the book of previous employees he had tossed there last night.

In the dark and with the constant paranoia that something might appear in the doorway right next to his face, it took about twenty minutes with Mike running back to the monitor to check on Foxy and the other animatronics. Bonnie had appeared in the dining hall, next to Freddy and Chica and Foxy had fully emerged from behind the curtain by the time Mike had finally found the exercise book under a fallen pile of papers.

For good measure, he shut the left door. A few seconds later, he heard the fast thudding footsteps of Foxy charging down the hall and almost fell out of his chair when the animatronic started throwing itself against the door. How desperate was this thing to get in?

It felt like hours until Foxy left. Mike turned the monitor back on just in time to see it vanish onto its stage, the curtain rippling as it pushed its way through. The other three animatronics were in the dining area and hadn't moved during the entire time.

Good.

He was about to turn the monitor back off when he caught sight of the percentage of power he had left in the corner of the screen.

_56%_

_56%_? How could the power have drained so quickly?

He thought back to Foxy banging on the door. The door required electricity to remain closed, did Foxy throwing itself against it do anything to the power? How would it even know that would do anything?

Phone Guy's first message stated that the animatronics just thought the night watch was an endoskeleton and were simply following their programming by stuffing you into a suit. Somehow, Mike was sincerely beginning to doubt it.

The animatronics were too intelligent. He wasn't sure how, but he knew they knew he was watching them. And they were watching him too. It was as if they were alive, watching, judging, calculating, slowly driving him insane. They'd had plenty of time to learn about this place, how it worked. They did live here after all. He was in their territory, who was to say they weren't just playing with him?

After checking the screens once more for good measure, he opened up the book. A few of the pages had been vandalised by previous employees with pen drawn over the photos of the staff's faces. Somebody had drawn a moustache and glasses over Mel's face which Mike found hugely entertaining. He was half relieved that they must have stopped the tradition of taking a new employee's photo because he did not want his face to be drawn on by some stranger.

Around the employees of September 1986, the drawings stopped. Finally losing patience, Mike checked the cameras once again (Chica and Bonnie were getting close to the east and west halls and Freddy was outside the toilets) and flipped to the back of the book.

The last night watch's photo had been torn out and the name scribbled over in a marker that leaked through the rest of the pages in the book. Mike could just make out the letters  _Fr... z ...m... th_. Whoever they were, they couldn't have been very well liked. There were no contact details beneath their name.

Mike wondered if this could be Phone Guy, but then he saw the date they had been employed on: 14th November, 1987. He remembered on the first day that Phone Guy only took the shift after the pizzeria opened up again. He sighed and went back for searching for him. All he knew what that his first name was Jonathan, but there were four guys called Jonathan in the entire book and these weren't even all of the employees.

He glanced at his watch, 3:12am. He still had  _52%_ power left, he was doing good.

Should he contact all the Jonathans in the book? What if the Jonathan he was looking for wasn't even in this book? What if he'd been working here before 1985? He looked around, it would take years to find another one of these staff books in the mess of the office. It looked as if a bomb had hit it and then made into a pigsty for good measure.

He turned the monitor back on. Bonnie and Chica were near the entrances of each of the halls. Freddy was almost at the office, barely onscreen on the camera closest to the right door. Its head was down, but its eyes looked right up into the camera.

Right hand throbbing, he pressed the door button with his left hand and turned away from the window. He didn't know what had happened to him when he'd seen Freddy on the screen, but he didn't want to know what was going to happen when he saw Freddy in person.

By that time, his entire wrist was swollen and every move sent pain lancing up his arm. He considered getting ice from the kitchen but the fastest route there was through the east hall which was where Freddy was standing. He could go through the west hall, but Bonnie and Chica were lying in wait in the dining area. He winced as he switched on the monitor and searched through the cameras. Bonnie was in the corridor, Foxy had parted the curtain slightly, only one of his eyes visible in the darkness and Chica was in the far corner of the dining area near the hall that led to the toilets.

If he closed the left door, he could stop Bonnie and Foxy getting into the office when he went to the kitchen. All he had to do was wait for Chica to move out of the dining area and into the restrooms and for Freddy to leave the east hall. He pressed the light switch for the east hall to check if the animatronic had left yet.

Its face was lit up.

_He tucked himself into the corner, behind Bonnie. The Purple Guy won't find him here. He'd never seen anybody use this room, maybe the Purple Guy didn't know it existed?_

_He held his breath. Not just to stop his pursuer from hearing him, but the room smelled as if it had never been cleaned. Maybe that was because no one used it._

_The Bonnie he was hiding behind was a bit different from the one he had often seen before, performing for everyone on stage. This one didn't move or sing. He just sat against the wall, smelling badly. Maybe he was sleeping? Same with the Foxy and Freddy that sat down in the room. The Chica and other Freddy looked different, though. All slumped against the wall like a pair of empty costumes._

_He heard footsteps outside._

_The door handle rattled and turned and the hinges shrieked as the door swung open._

_A silhouette stood in the doorway. A hammer in his hand, a badge on his chest and a smile on his face._

_The Purple Guy._

_He hugged Bonnie, hoping for, wishing for, praying for something to protect him._

_The Purple Guy said wanted to play a game with them. He said they could all play a game of hide and seek and he was it. But if they got caught, he was allowed to kill them. They didn't think he was serious at first, but..._

_He could still hear the crunching as her bones broke before she ran away crying and the Purple Guy began to count._

_"Ready or not, here I come."_

_Please don't find me..._

_Where was the security guard? Places like this had somebody to protect them, some kind of guardian. If Freddy and his friends couldn't save them, the guard had to._

_Somebody save me..._

_The Purple Guy came into the room, taking his time to glance around. He didn't bother to turn on the light._

_Please, somebody..._

_He leaned forward to look at the sleeping Freddy and his friends. When would they wake up?_

_I don't care who it is, I just don't want to die..._

_The Purple Guy kicked over Chica, who tumbled to the floor in front of him. He stared at the chicken, expecting her to leap to her feet and fight off the bad man. But she didn't._

_Her eye sockets were hollow and her body looked limp and deflated._

_She really was just an empty costume._

_Was this magic that this place created, this fun place for children and adults alike, was it all fake? Was it all just a facade to cover up its true colours? If this place wasn't safe, what was?_

_Purple Guy must have heard him, because a second later, he had been dragged out of his hiding spot._

_The Purple Guy grinned at him, "Found you." he said, "Now, that was way too easy."_

_He screamed, trying to struggle away. He aimed a kick at the Purple Guy's knee but was shoved to the floor._

_"Now, that's hardly fair, now it's it?"_

_He squirmed, the carpet reeked. He stared up, right into the golden security badge on the man's chest._

_That made him go still._

_He used to love the pizzeria. His friends loved it too. But is this what always happened after hours? Have they always kept a group of children behind after dark to play with them?_

_Were the adults evil?_

_He didn't know. His time was rapidly coming to an end._

_Fortunately, it was quick._

_He died wishing for someone to save him. Not an adult, though. He couldn't trust adults anymore. He couldn't tell them apart. He just wanted his mother, he just wanted his father. He just wanted Freddy and his favourite animatronic, Bonnie to come rescue him._

_It wasn't Bonnie who rescued him, though._

_It wasn't even Freddy._

_Not long after the Purple Guy had gone, a slim figure emerged from the shadows, tears rolling down their face._

_"How could someone do this to you?" they whispered, crouching down next to his dying body, choking back sobs, "Don't worry. I'll save you. I'll save your friends. I'll save them."_

The next thing he knew, he was on his knees in front of the door.

Freddy was gone. He had nothing to lose now.

He slammed on the left hall door, shutting it in Bonnie's face and opened the right door. He could see right down the corridor. He couldn't wait. If he did, he might never get this opportunity again for the rest of the night.

Taking a deep breath and shoving whatever he had just seen out of his mind, he ran.

* * *

The hall seemed to go on for miles. Every gasp felt like it was tearing his lungs apart. 

He skidded into the dining area and without looking to see if any of the animatronics on the stage had noticed him, shouldered open the kitchen door and charged in.

It took about a minute to get his breath back, he'd never been a good runner. He straightened up and looked around. Mike had never seen the inside of the kitchen before. He wasn't taken inside it when Nikki gave him a tour of the place and he couldn't see it from the office as the camera never had worked, giving only audio footage. The room was dark and it took another minute of fumbling to finally locate the light switch.

The florescent lights flickered on and Mike's eyes took a second to adjust to the brightness. The entire room was about half the size of the dining hall, lined with four metal counters, the tops of them gleaming in the new light. Along the sides of the kitchen were sinks and three large pizza ovens and in the far corner, the large walk-in fridge and freezer.

Glancing behind him to make sure nothing had snuck in while his back was turned, he made a beeline for the freezer. He wasn't sure if it contained ice, but anything frozen would probably be good enough. The moment he opened the door, the cold air hit him like a tsunami. He stepped inside, the light flickered on automatically as he entered.

It was the same size, if not bigger than the office. The walls were lined with pre-made pizza bases and ingredients, but no ice was anywhere. Not that it really mattered, everything inside was frozen solid already.

He pulled his shirt off and zipped his jacket up, shivering. He didn't want to stay for long, the last thing he wanted was to be locked inside and slowly freeze to death. The frozen lumps of dough were a lot heavier than they looked and it was especially hard to pick them up one-handed. It landed with a loud thud at his feet and he swore he felt the entire freezer shake slightly. He crouched down beside it, covering it with his shirt and wincing as he had to twist his wrist slightly to press against it.

Checking the watch on his left wrist, he tried to calculate how to get back. Now that he didn't have the monitor, he had no idea if something was lurking in the shadows on his route back to the office. He had no idea how much power was left, either. Did that power only count in the office or were the lights in the kitchen and freezer slowly eating it up? If they didn't, the fact still remained that the left door back in the office was closed, using up power in the meantime. How long would he have to keep applying ice to his wrist? School and college had never taught him first aid.

He'd stay in the freezer for ten minutes, that aught to be enough time for the cold to take effect if he didn't die from hypothermia before then. Maybe if he ran, none of the animatronics would get him. Even if they were in the dining area or east hall, they might be too surprised to catch him.

That was, at least, as long as one of them wasn't lying in wait inside the office.

It was 3:31 at that moment, time seemed to drag on forever.

3:34

His entire forearm was numb.

3:36

The effects of all the coffee and adrenaline was wearing off and his exhaustion was returning. He sat down on the frozen floor, feeling the cold seep though his legs.

3:38

For the first time that night, he was aware of the hunger gnawing away at his stomach. It had been hours since he'd last eaten. Part of the dough under his arm had thawed slightly and he scraped at it with the nails on his left hand, tearing off a clump of it. It was cold but slightly sweet, probably full of sugar. He pulled some more off, ignoring the iciness that bit his fingers.

It wasn't as if there was a specific rule against employees stealing food from the kitchens, right? If anybody asked, he could just blame it on rats or something. It wasn't as if this place was 100% hygienic. Just the smell of the backstage alone could infest this place with vermin.

He spend the rest of the time eating away at the dough and shivering. Just his jacket wasn't doing a very good job at keeping him warm and he was beginning to find it difficult to keep his eyes open.

3:42. Awesome, now he could finally get out.

He stumbled to his feet, trying to balance on his half-frozen legs. He clung onto a shelf for support as he staggered toward the door. He swung it open and was met with Chica standing just metres in front of him.

He swore loudly, almost slipping on the ice beneath him as he slammed the door shut.

Not good. Not good.

Mike stepped back until he was pressed against the far side of the freezer, the chilly room wasn't the only thing sending shivers down his spine now. Had Chica seen him? If it had, he was dead. He was cornered now, it could just walk in and get him or lock him in. Either possibility didn't sound good.

Maybe he could just wait until it was gone. It couldn't hang out in the kitchen forever, right? Sooner or later, it might get bored and go for the office instead only to find that he won't be there and go back to its dumb show stage.

He breathed on his hands to warm them, his fingertips were turning blue. The ice had done a good job at relieving most of the pain, but sudden or awkward movements led to stabbing pain. By now, he doubted that he could make a run for it. He was cold, hungry and tired. All he could do was wait for Chica to move out.

How long would it take? A minute? Half an hour? An hour? All night? It could have locked him in right now. How much longer would it take someone to find him? Would he be better off trying to get back to the office or waiting it out? He considered putting his damp shirt back on, but that would just make him even colder. He settled with just tying it around his right wrist.

Cautiously, he shuffled back toward the door. As he couldn't hide behind a screen now, there was only one way to find out where the animatronics were. He cracked the door open and peered out.

The entire kitchen was pitch dark, lit only by the small sliver of light that streamed out of the freezer.

Did Chica just turn the light off? He had no idea robots could be concerned about saving energy.

That or it knew it had a better chance of ambushing him in the dark.

The former thought sounded a lot nicer.

He shut the door and backed away. He wanted to think up some kind of foolproof strategy to get him back to safety, but the only thing that consumed his mind was his growling stomach.

 _Fine, I can wait._  Mike thought, tearing off more frozen dough. He knew it didn't do him much good in relation to the cold, but starving to death sounded just as unpleasant to him.

He glanced at his watch: 3:45. How long would it take to freeze? He knew he could slow down his icy doom by keeping moving, but he doubted he could do that for too long.

The way he saw it now, he had three options: stay in the freezer and freeze, run blindly through the establishment and shut himself in the office, or somehow find a way to sneak back to the office with none of the animatronics catching him.

The freezer would no doubt kill him and if there was one thing he knew it was that he really wasn't up for more running.

He sighed. Sneaking it was. He just hoped the animatronics didn't have night vision. It was unlikely, but they had proved to be very surprising.

One hand on the door, he took a deep, composing breath out of the frosty air and pushed it open. The kitchen exploded with light as he threw the door open and he caught Chica's yellow shape a few metres to his left.

Shoving the door shut, he darted through the darkness and slammed into a counter, ducking behind it. He bit back a hiss of pain as his injured wrist slammed against the metal top.

He could hear something getting closer. Heavy, lumbering steps in the silence.

Could it hear his thudding heart?

Even if it couldn't, it would find him eventually.

Eyes slowly adjusting, he began to crawl. He could just make out the door out all the way across the room. He couldn't see Chica, though. For all he knew, it could be right behind him.

Reaching the end of the counter, he paused, looking around. Where was Chica? He darted around the corner so that he was hiding behind the next counter. He stared down it in the gloom just to make sure the animatronic wasn't standing right beside him.

If he kept hiding behind the counters, he would make slow progress to the door. He had no idea what he would do when he reached it, though. What if Freddy was waiting on the other side?

Too late to think of that now.

He hurried forward so that he was behind the next counter. He was almost at the door now. Just one more counter to go. Then he'd be at the door. Pity there was no lock on the outside, he would have loved to shut Chica in. One less animatronic to worry about.

Taking another deep breath, he sped around the corner and almost crashed into the very thing he was trying to avoid.

"SON OF A-"

He whirled around, grabbing onto the counter with his injured wrist and dragging himself to his feet. He was barely aware of the jab of pain that shot through it.

The door was so close.

He ran for it.

Maybe Chica was chasing him, but he didn't care.

He threw the door open, skidded around the corner and dashed into the east corridor.

He almost slammed into Freddy, who turned as he zipped passed, stumbled into the office, punched the door button and collapsed into the chair.

Afterward, he wasn't sure how long he stayed like that, staring up at the dark ceiling. It took a while for him to come to his senses and the first thing he did was clumsily check the cameras with his left hand. His right hand lay on the table, its numbness couldn't hide the feeling like it was being stabbed by a dozen knives.

A part of him was concerned about it, but that was drowned out by his evident paranoia.

Freddy, Chica and Bonnie were back on the stage. Pirate Cove was still.

Lacking the strength to get up, he pushed his swivel seat toward each of the doors in turn, gently pressing the buttons to open them.

His watch read 5:47, it was almost over.

With the power was running thin and the animatronics were far from his office, he didn't bother to check the monitor again. He opened up the sketch book, but he wasn't entirely sure why. Maybe he just needed something to do. The book opened to one of the last pages.

Immediately, he stiffened. The page he had opened to was filled with just one character, drawn over and over again.

A smiling face and blushing cheeks, yet its entire face looked like a mask, a cheery facade that couldn't cover up the tear streaks running down its face. Its body was long, thin and dark, its spindly arms striped with black and white. From its hands and feet hung strings that led nowhere.

A name came to Mike's mind.

The Puppet.

_"Freddy's got magic powers?"_

_"No, the Puppet does."_

That's what the cupcake girl had said. Some kind of mysterious puppet that none of the staff had mentioned to Mike before he had taken up the night shift. Come to think of it, there was a lot the staff didn't tell him before he took up the night shift. Based on the amount of information given to him throughout the last few days, the only person who he found himself trusting was Phone Guy and he was just a recorded message.

Some kind of magic puppet... Was that what all this was about? The life that the animatronics seemed to have, the anger in Freddy's eyes, the unnatural intelligence of the animatronics... Was the puppet the puppeteer of everything, despite the irony?

His body shuddered, but not from the effects of the freezer that were slowly wearing off.

He almost fell out of his chair when the Westminster Chime rang through the building.

6am.

He just groaned and rested his head on the desk.

If there was one thing he knew, it was that he was never going to make five nights.


	5. Justice For a Mother

"So let me get this straight." the doctor said without looking away from the cast he was making, "You're saying that you fractured your wrist by punching a wall?"

"Yeah, something like that." Mike confirmed, "I was just trying to press a button but I might have just pressed it too hard."

"I can see that." the doctor muttered.

Unfortunately for Mike, his wrist injury was not just a sprain as he had hoped. He'd fractured one of the bones badly, almost snapping it entirely over the course of the night. Maybe he should have tried a little harder to not run into things during his mad dash back to the office.

He glared distastefully down at the sling the doctor was strapping around his wrist and neck, "So how long do I have to keep this thing on for?" he asked.

"The cast or the sling?"

"Both."

"The cast will have to stay on for six to eight weeks." the doctor told him, "The sling for about half the time. It's mainly for support."

Mike sighed, he hated slings. For some reason, he'd always had a strong dislike for them since he was a kid, "Do I really need it?"

The doctor just gave him a look that clearly said 'I know what I'm doing' and Mike shut up at once.

When the doctor had finished with the cast and the dumb sling, Mike straight away located a place in the building he could find coffee. As long as he worked at Freddy Fazbear's he had a feeling that was all he was going to live off. Due to a lack of sleep over the past two nights, his movements had grown considerably slower and more sluggish. All the same, the last thing he wanted was to fall asleep, only to be assaulted with some crazy nightmare of him getting his brains bashed in by a purple guy.

His coffee seemed to be about 50% pure coffee bean and he gagged at the taste. Even adding five spoons of sugar barely did nothing to improve the flavour. But all he needed was the caffeine.

He just hoped it would be enough to keep him awake, preferably for the rest of the week.

His mother was sitting in the waiting room and got up as he came in.

" _Come on, I'm taking you home now_." she said in German, leading him out of the building with him trailing behind like a duckling, " _You can call your boss and tell her you're not coming in for work tonight._ " he tried to protest but she went on, " _You broke your wrist, Michael. She'll understand_."

" _But mum, I'm fine_." Mike whined, taking a sip of his extra-bitter coffee even though it made him want to puke, " _I can still watch a bunch of robots, the week so far's been really uneventful_."

Lie, lie, lie, lie.

" _Right, so uneventful that you got yourself injured._ " she deadpanned, opening the car door, " _Finish that crap you're drinking before you get into my car, by the way._ "

Mike rolled his eyes and stood on the sidewalk, though he didn't make a move to finish his coffee, " _I won't sleep if I go back home, can you just take me back into town_?"

She wound down the window to speak to him, fixing him with her piercing blue eyes, " _You need to sleep. I haven't seen you awake for this long in years, though I'm a lot less relieved than I thought. You look sick, Mike._ " he started to deny but she cut him off, " _And this is the third day in a row you've worn that shirt. You need sleep and you need a shower. You don't need coffee. Throw that stuff away._ " _  
_

He made a face and downed it in one go, choking at the bitterness and burning his throat. But he was stubborn.

" _I'm an adult, I can look after myself._ " he insisted, tossing the empty cup in through the car's open window much to his mother's distaste, " _And it's not like I'm going to go climb a mountain or fight a bear or anything, I'll probably just go to the library or something._ "

" _The library? Why would you go there_?"

" _I need to study, mum. Don't you want me to get a good education so that my future won't be filled with me having to work the minimum wage to guard some singing animals_?"

" _I don't like your tone, Michael_."

" _Does that mean I can stay out_?"

She sighed, " _Alright then._   _You can stay out and die from exhaustion if you want to. Just be home in time for dinner, okay_?" she leaned over and opened the door for him, " _Have you got money_?"

" _Yeah, I've got money_." he replied, sliding into the passenger seat victorious.

She started the car, " _Though for the life of me, I can't understand you at all these days. I thought you liked your sleep_?"

" _I do_." he protested half-heartedly as she pulled out of the carpark, " _I just want to start taking responsibility for my education. Is that too much to ask_?" he saw her roll her eyes. She wasn't buying it. Fortunately, she didn't argue so he was saved from having to make up another crappy excuse as to why he would rather do anything than go to sleep. From the look on her face, she was probably suspecting that he was going to go do drugs or something.

She let him out at the library and confirmed his suspicions by reminding him how bad drugs were for him. He ignored her and made a beeline for the library door. He had only one reason for going to this place, and that was because it had two things: fast internet (though it wasn't that fast, it was a lot faster than his home internet) and any and all reports that could hold any information about Freddy Fazbear's Pizza.

In here, there were no secrets.

* * *

 He found a computer in the corner away from everyone else and opened the search engine.

'Freddy _Fazbear's Pizza_ ' he typed. It was a bit awkward as his sling made his right hand almost completely immobile. Every page that came up was just people talking about the food and animatronics.

' _Freddy Fazbear's Pizza animatronics_ ' he tried.

 _The_ _animatronics at Freddy's are so cute!_ Nope.  _How do those animatronics at Freddy Fazbear's work?_ Nope. _Those Freddy Fazbear animatronics look like they want to kill me!_

He clicked on the last link and was met with a page of somebody ranting about how creepy the animatronics looked. It wasn't exactly what he was looking for. He closed the tab and went back to searching.

What about ' _Freddy Fazbear's Pizza killer animatronics_ '? He wasn't sure what to expect, but he hit 'search' anyway.

The first page was the less than satisfying one he had checked out before. The second one read  _Justice for a Mother: CLOSE DOWN FREDDY FAZBEAR'S FOR GOOD!_ He opened it.

It was an article, undoubtedly written by a mother. The date it was written said 1987, 6 years prior. At the very top was a large picture of a young boy who couldn't have been older than five or six. He was pale and skinny with long straight black hair that hung into his eyes. He was smiling, but it looked forced and to Mike it seemed as if he was about to cry.

He began to read the article beneath it.

_Freddy Fazbear's Pizzeria has been a working and successful restaurant since 1970. However, it is time that it finally should come to an end. Once a popular family diner, it was bought by some rich company who cares more about the money it makes them than the children they're supposed to be responsible for. Although their first years of being open were extremely successful, the quality of the facilities and security the staff can offer have been dropping drastically._

_Above is a picture of my son, Zachariah or just Zach. Two years ago, he was killed outside the restaurant during hours. It was at the time of one of his friend's parties and the entire place was full, it was expected that the staff would supervise all the children._

_Unfortunately, this was not the case. They let him wander outside where he was poisoned by an unknown killer. It took just minutes for him to die and I returned to the pizzeria to find the manager breaking the news to me. It pains me to write this, it really does. The manager simply told me that my son was dead, refusing to share any more information. I had to interrogate the staff and only one person gave me the full account from their perspective._

_I have done my research in my mission to bring justice to my son and I have found that this is not the only time something similar has happened. A few_ _years ago, a chain restaurant was opened and according to the limited facts I can find about the place, it was closed after an employee was crushed to death by an animatronic._

_One thing is proved from this: the management is careless and greedy. They don't care what happens to the patrons, the children or their staff as long as it brings them and their infernal company gain. I begged them to find a way to catch Zach's killer, but the manager just gave me a sympathetic smile as if I was stupid and told me that as the murder hadn't taken place on their premises, they had no reason to have to be included in my 'dilemma'._

_Over fifteen years, the pizzeria has been in a constant state of opening and closing. How many more 'accidents' like my son Zach will have to happen before the rotten business stays shut for good? I need support if I am to close it down permanently. Please donate and spread the word!_

Beneath were her contact details and an extremely short list of comments.

_JJ Watson: Lay off the place, everywhere has a few slip ups. It's a great place, I've been there with my family. The food is great, the animatronics are great, the staff is nice. I'm sorry about your kid, but just because your experience was bad doesn't mean you should ruin everyone else's experience._

_Lana Martin: Wow, sorry about your son. Hope the place shuts down! Can you check out my blog?_

_Fritz Smith: I see what you're getting at but believe me, it's not going to be that easy to shut it down._

_Victor Leigh: Haha, you left your kid alone at that place? Just the animatronics alone look like they can kill you._

He'd reached the end.

So some kid had been killed there back in 1985? It had been an interesting read, no doubt. But it had given him absolutely no insight into the animatronics. He tried checking out the next few links but got next to nothing.

The internet held nothing else of interest. All that was left now was the archives. 

"Freddy Fazbear's Pizza?" the librarian asked, curiosity glittering in her eyes, "That's funny, another man just came in asking the same thing." she pointed him in the direction of the records, "I'm sure you'll find him there. It's been a few years since anybody's come in to research that place. The last person was Jeremy someone or other and that was way back in 1987."

Mike made his way through rows of dusty shelves. This was a part of the library less frequently visited than the colourful children's section that overflowed with loud kids reading, talking and throwing books around. This corner was almost completely silent save from the occasional rustling of pages from someone hidden among the maze of shelves.

When he finally did find the place he was looking for, it was only because somebody was already there. He was sitting crosslegged on the floor with the box open beside him. The amount of papers inside was pitifully small.

He looked around his late thirties, but his hair was already starting to grey. He had a tired look to him, his dark eyes seemed to have long lost their shine as they scanned the aged reports. It took him a minute to notice Mike. When he did, he just stared blankly up at him before going back to reading.

"Hey."

The man glanced up, "Can I help you?" there was a light Spanish accent to his voice.

Mike pointed to the files, "Are those about Freddy Fazbear's Pizza?" he asked.

"Yeah, why?"

"I work there now." he answered, "I just wanted to find out some stuff about it."

He didn't expect to be given a sympathetic look. The man pushed the box to one side so Mike could sit down. "Let me guess, you've taken the night watch?"

"Yeah." said Mike, sitting down opposite him, "How did you-"

"Take my advice and quit." he said without looking up, "The pay sucks, the entire place smells weird and you'll probably be dead by the end of your next shift."

That was the first time anybody had told him so bluntly that he was going to die. Mike didn't know whether to feel relieved that he wasn't delusional about the animatronics trying to kill him or to panic because he wasn't delusional about the animatronics trying to kill him.

"Oh." was all he could say, "Well, at least you're honest about it. Who are you exactly?"

"I used to work there." the man answered simply, "Though I had no idea they'd bother hiring a new security guard for their last week. Jonathan's been taking the shift for years I hear."

"Yeah, right, whatever." Mike muttered, "So who are you?"

He started to go through his bag that lay open beside him, "My name's Lex Holguín," he pulled out a notebook and pen, "can I ask how many nights you've been working for?"

Mike stared blankly at him.

"I mean, who are you who are you." he said, "And what is going on?" he had about fifty more questions but he wasn't able to put them all into words fast enough. Was this guy a journalist or something? Maybe he was writing an article about the pizzeria closing down. That was the only logical explanation as to why he'd be poking around here in Mike's opinion. Also, he had learned that anybody with a notebook and pen was either a journalist or a college student pretending to study.

Lex just smirked and nudged the dusty cardboard box, "You said you wanted to find some stuff about Fazbear's?" he asked, "You can get the gist of it from this. Though I still think it's a better idea to just quit."

"Yeah, yeah, so for the last time: who are you?" he had a feeling Lex was trying to avoid the question.

"Just a former employee." Lex told him, "I'd worked there since it was just a family diner. Back then, I used to know the entire establishment and the animatronics better than I knew myself, you want to know about it? If you're smart, don't bother. The place is dangerous."

"I'm finding that a little difficult." Mike admitted.

Lex indicated at Mike's arm in the sling, "That looks like a new injury." he stated, "You don't look like you're used to having it immobilised like that. You haven't had much time to adjust to it, that's obvious. You've started work as a night guard and you've come here for answers, yet you didn't look surprised when I told you you'll be dead by the end of your next shift. You've had time to recover from the shock of your first night, but judging by your desperation for answers, you couldn't have been there for too long. If you'd been hurt on your first night, you wouldn't have returned for a second. I'd say you've been working there two nights, injured yourself on the second."

"Great job, Sherlock Holmes." Mike said dryly, not sure what else to say.

"I've learned to read the security guards." he replied, "When I worked there, we'd go through two to three a week if we were lucky, most of them quit after just one or two nights. A few just left without even announcing they were quitting. I ended up having to take the shift for almost a month before the Puppet almost got me."

_A pale face, tears running from its empty eyes, its skinny black body slipping through the shadows..._

Mike's voice came out as a strangled gasp, "The  _what_ almost got you?"

Lex brushed his question off casually, "Just some dumb ornament that scared the kids so we just hid it in a music box where nobody would notice it. One night, that ugly thing crawled out of its stupid box and tried to strangle me."

Mike stared at him, his eyes wide, "How did you survive?" he questioned.

For the first time, he looked a little embarrassed, "Dumb luck, actually." he said, "My shift ended just in the nick of time and the animatronics switched back into their day modes. Though I had no clue the Puppet was an animatronic."

"Do you know anything else about the Puppet?" Mike questioned while trying to figure out how a puppet could move on its own. Surely it needed somebody to pull at the strings?

“Look, I'm not really much of a people person, I don't think I'd be able to explain everything as well as you'd want me to.” Lex admitted, ignoring Mike's question entirely. By now, Mike was almost certain that Lex was avoiding answering.

“I don't care how well you answer it, I just want answers and you have them, right?”

Lex thought for a minute, his dark eyes narrowing slightly, finally he spoke, “Go back to Freddy Fazbear's. Somewhere in the office is a book containing all the previous employees and most of their contact details. Go to the back of the book and one of the last people there is Jeremy Fitzgerald. He was the last person to ask me for answers and I gave him them.”

“You gave him answers and not me?” Mike protested, “Why?”

Lex shoved his book back into his bag and got up, “A lot has happened since 1987.” he said, “After the Bite, I tried to distance myself from that place but from what I've heard, Jeremy tried to do some poking around. Who knows? Maybe by now he knows more than I do.” he made a move to leave but then stopped, turned and nudged the cardboard box on the floor, “And by the way, most of this information is either written from the management's or from somebody who has no idea what's going on's perspective. They may have a hint of truth to them but overall, you'll be wasting your time.”

He stared down the aisle where Lex had vanished. "What a weirdo." he muttered before pulling the box over to him and leafing through the papers inside.

It was filled with newspaper clippings.  _Fredbear's Family Diner Re-opened New and Improved!, Freddy Fazbear's Pizzeria a Huge Success!, Sister Locations Opened!_ the headlines grew increasingly more impressive and then suddenly -  _Employee Crushed to Death, Freddy Fazbear's Sister Location Shut Down!, Child Death Outside_ _Pizzeria: Management Refuses to take Responsibility!, More Missing Security Guards!, Animatronic Bites Child by Day while Five Murdered by Night! Freddy's Closing Down Once More!_

Yikes, so much for a fun place for adults and children alike.

The first few clippings were pretty boring, 'people love this place, it's so nice, yadda, yadda, yadda'. Most of articles were pretty short, even the one about the employee getting crushed by an animatronic was just a paragraph or two long 'employee dead, brother very sad, has no family, animatronic scrapped and sister location shut down, what a shame for the company, boo hoo'. Even the bit about Zachariah the crying kid was brief.

_This weekend, a tragic incident struck when during a first grader's party. A young boy of age seven slipped away from the watch of the staff and was seen crying outside before he was poisoned by a passerby. It's unknown as to why this matter has occurred and no further investigation is to take place despite his mother's protests._

_"He simply wasn't on the pizzeria's grounds." Manager Melanie Carlson states, "I'm sorry for her loss, but Fazbear Entertainment has no business in this issue. This is the first time it has happened and the last time it ever will."_

In the short time he'd known her, Mike had gotten the impression that Mel was extremely stingy. But not taking responsibility for a kid getting killed right outside her restaurant? That was low, even for her. He couldn't help but wonder why the article wasn't much longer, this was a kid getting murdered in a public place. But then, would he put it past her to bribe the reporter or whoever wrote the article to keep it short? He had no idea.

There was a total of four missing persons reports on disappearances that had taken place over the past eight years, two were men and one was a woman ranging from age 17 to 53. All of them had last taken the night watch. Because of this fact, Mike figured that it wouldn't help his paranoia at all if he chose to read them.

There wasn't much left in the box now, he'd skimmed over most of the articles on the pizzeria's success and the dead employee. All that was left now was the headline that read  _Animatronic Bites Child by Day while Five Murdered at Night_ heading written in 1987. That was it. No article, somebody had just cut the headline out and left it in the box.

Not very useful.

He double-checked all the other bits of paper for the rest of the article. He wasn't interested in the success of the pizzeria, he wanted to find more about who had died there. All he felt like he needed to know was about who else was killed in that place.

He'd never been one to believe in the paranormal.

Could this crying kid, Zach, who got murdered outside back in 1985 have something to do with any of this? Thinking about it, the idea sounded ridiculous. But then, so did the idea of a bunch of singing animals killing you by stuffing you into a suit. Everything was beginning to get a little ridiculous...

Maybe he should just take Lex's advice and quit. It would save him a lot of trouble and he wouldn't be - as Lex had so nicely put it - dead by the end of his next shift. But... He was couldn't help but feel so  _curious_. The image of the Puppet hung at the front of his mind, its empty eye sockets and wide, gaping mouth seemed to call to him. After all these years, was it still in the pizzeria?

Something in his mind suddenly clicked. He hastily shoved the papers back inside the box and left it open on the ground as he returned to the computers. It seemed to take forever to turn on as he impatiently tapped against the desk. Typing seemed to take twice as long with only one hand, but he soon had the webpage open once again.

The image of the Puppet was clear in his mind as he stared at the screen, at the picture of Zachariah the murdered crying child.

Something was off about the two of them.

 _'I had no clue the Puppet was an animatronic'_   Lex had said. If that was the case, it shouldn't be able to move unless somebody was controlling it.

It was a bit farfetched, but this kid had died right outside the pizzeria, perhaps not on the premises but close enough.

And who says he's the only one? According to the lone headline, five more were killed in 1987, two years later. Six murdered children in total and four animatronics to play with, plus the Puppet. What other unpleasant surprises could be waiting for him to return?

Killer robots, murderous spirits...

And for some reason, he still went back that night.


	6. Night Three: All that Glitters is not Gold

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry this one's a bit late, I've got school exams so I've been a little stressed out. Here it is anyway!

The first thing that came to Mike's mind when he found himself sitting in that office was 'what the hell am I doing back here?'.

The second thing was that it was 12.

They were coming for him.

He groaned and turned on the monitor. He wasn't looking forward to this night with one arm immobile.

Waiting for Phone Guy's message, he flicked through the screens. He wasn't sure what to expect, pale white forms passing through walls? Children's eyes staring at him through the darkness? All he could see was Pirate Cove's curtain hadn't moved and the two animatronics were still on stage-

Oh, Bonnie was gone.

He really was hoping for a quiet evening.

The bunny hadn't moved far, thank god. It was still in the dining hall. He went back to the stage to make sure the other two animatronics hadn't moved.

As he was checking Pirate Cove once more to check on Foxy to see a gleaming metal hook parting the curtain, the phone began to ring. Without looking at it, he fumbled for the 'speaker' button and was greeted with Phone Guy's familiar " _Hello? hello?_ "

" _Hey, you're doing great!_ " somehow, Mike felt a glimmer of pride at Phone Guy's words. Congratulations on not dying! " _Most people don't last this long. I- I mean, they usually move onto something else by now. I-I'm not implying that they died! Th-th-that's not what I meant..._ " the little ray of pride was immediately snuffed out as Phone Guy struggled to sound reassuring.

" _Um, yeah, I won't talk for long. Things start to get a bit tricky starting tonight._ "

Mike groaned. Things had already been tricky enough with the trauma of his first night and the injury on his second night. What was waiting for him this night? Phone Guy's message didn't sound too positive anymore. As he switched through the screens, he found another reason for his heart to sink even lower. Foxy was glaring at him from behind the curtain, Chica had left the stage and Bonnie was in the backstage.

 _You're lucky you can't smell how badly that place reeks_. Mike thought as he switched off the monitor.

Phone Guy went on, " _Oh um, and I had an idea! If one of the animatronics catches you, try playing dead! They might just think you're an empty costume and leave you be._ " That could work, he'd do anything to stop this place killing him. " _Wait, no, actually, er... Maybe you shouldn't... I mean, if they think y-you're an empty costume, they... Ah, they might try t-to stuff a metal endoskeleton inside of you..._ " _  
_

Mike groaned and closed his eyes, covering his face with his left hand. He did not need that mental image. He'd already had enough disturbing thoughts over the past two nights.

" _Y-yeah, forget I said that. It's a better to just... Y'know, not get caught, I guess._ "

"No shit, Sherlock." Mike said aloud, checking both doors in case the animatronics had heard him. Could they hear him? If they could see, maybe they could hear, too.

" _Um... Well, I guess I'll record another message for you tomorrow. The animatronics seem a little more hostile than usual tonight, I-I'd better concentrate... See you on the flip side._ " there was a click as he hung up.

Behind his constant stuttering, Phone Guy always seemed to sound quite casual. Perhaps that was due to him taking the shift for so long, how long did it take him to get used to the constant threat of death hanging over his head? A month? A year? This was the first time he had said anything to do with what was happening to him. More than ever, Mike wanted some way to talk to him.

He had to know everything. The crying child, the Bite of '87, the missing children incident...

 _Find Jeremy Fitzgerald_. Lex had told him. If Lex wasn't going to talk and he had no clue how to find Phone Guy, it looked like this Jeremy Fitzgerald guy was his only option.

He glanced down at his shirt, over the past few days he'd barely worn anything else. Instead, he'd just covered it with a jacket and pretended it wasn't soiled with dirt and sweat. At least it was so filthy and the office was so dark, it was a lot harder to make out the fact that it was purple in colour.

Just the thought of gleaming purple eyes made him shiver. He zipped up his jacket and turned the monitor back on, desperate for something to do.

Bonnie was still hanging out with all the spare suits in the backstage, Chica was out of the dining area and Foxy was-

Oh no.

He launched himself toward the west door, the pounding of running footsteps getting louder. He went to hit the button with his right hand but the sling rendered it useless. Just as Foxy appeared through the darkness, the door slid shut. He flinched as Foxy threw itself against the metal door, the banging sound echoing through the quiet building. Even after the pirate fox had slunk back off to Pirate Cove, Mike couldn't relax.

Who was he kidding? He hadn't relaxed in days.

Not wanting to use the limited power he had, he tried to look down each of the halls in turn. The dim office light only reached a few metres before the corridors descended into blackness. He took the risk to switch the hall lights on for a few moments but nothing was lying in wait for him.

He checked the cameras again, he still had _92%_ power left. Bonnie was nearing the west hall, Chica was creeping closer to the east hall and Freddy had barely moved. Pirate Cove was still.

Did the animatronics have a sort of routine? It was just then that Mike realised that Bonnie had never come at him from the east hall, as Chica never came from the west.

He tried to picture the layout of the pizzeria in his head. Three animatronics started on the stage, Bonnie always left first. Freddy didn't start to roam until much later into the night. Foxy stuck to Pirate Cove and when he left, he always ran down the west hall.

Maybe it had something to do with their programming? Mike felt a small flicker of relief at this thought. If the animatronics were really possessed, would they still follow their programming like robots?

He stiffened at the sound of a thud coming from his left. He quickly switched the screen back on. Bonnie was right at his end of the hall.

How had it gotten there so quickly? He switched the monitor back on and turned just in time to see the bunny stumble into view outside the window. Glaring at it, he pressed the door button.

"Not tonight, you freak." he growled.

Phone Guy had told him the animatronics get more active as the week progressed. He was just twenty minutes into his shift and thoroughly regretting coming back.

He flicked through the various cameras. Chica was halfway down the hall already, Freddy had inched a bit closer off the stage and Bonnie was nowhere to be found. It was probably still hanging around right outside his door.

Switching the screen off, he checked the east hall again. He couldn't see Chica through the darkness and the light wasn't strong enough to reach wherever it was.

Was it just him or where the animatronics going straight for his office tonight? The other two nights, they'd take a detour to the bathrooms or supply closet.

On the plus side, he hadn't gotten any freaky visions yet.

With Chica so close, he couldn't help but keep checking the cameras and the light in the hall. Bonnie had finally left him alone after five minutes and he let the door slide open. Checking outside the east door, he could just see a yellow shape in the gloom.

To close the door and use up power or leave it open and possibly be caught off-guard? This was quite literally a matter of life and death.

If he waited, he could regret it soon. If he didn't wait, he could regret it later. Nothing was certain.

Wait? Don't wait? Wait? Don't wait?

Technically, he was waiting right now.

So should he keep waiting or should he close the door now? It could be right outside.

Choosing to play it safe, he pressed the button to close the door.

He turned the monitor back on to check on Pirate Cove, the curtain was parted but there was no sign of Foxy. Just to be sure, he switched on the hall light and listened for the sound of running feet. Satisfied that he saw and heard nothing, he flicked through the screens to make sure the other animatronics hadn't gotten uncomfortably close to his office.

Bonnie was back in the dining area with Freddy, Chica was retreating back to the show stage. He switched the screen off and-

A slow, deep chuckle echoed through the building.

Every muscle tensed, his nails bit into his palms.

What the hell was that? An animatronic? A person? The ghost of a kid who's been brutally murdered years ago?

The darkness around him felt suffocating. He could almost feel eyes boring into him. If there was one thing he knew, it was that he wasn't alone.

Fumbling for the button to turn the monitor back on, he flicked over all the areas the animatronics could be. The three that started on the stage were all in the centre dining area, gathered near one of the party tables. To Mike it almost looked as if they were holding a little press conference, which would have looked quite funny if they weren't planning on murdering him.

He switched back through the cameras. If Freddy and the rest of his freaky friends could sing, could they make sadistic, diabolical laughs too? It was a possibility, but from the sound of it, it wasn't the kind of noise that you should play in a place filled with little kids.

Could it be this Puppet thing?

But Lex had said it wasn't meant to be an animatronic, how could it make a noise then?

Maybe he'd just imagined it...

Or maybe someone else had snuck into the building before or during his shift while he wasn't looking. In that case, he could find them on the cameras.

Nobody on the stage, nobody in the backstage, nobody in the supply closet, nobody but the animatronics in the dining area, nobody outside the bathrooms, nobody in either of the halls, Foxy had fully emerged from Pirate Cove, its dull russet fur seemed to bristle in anger as it prepared to charge.

Not wanting to wait for it to do so, Mike pressed the button to close the door and double checked the cameras. His eyes wandered to the percentage of how much power was left in the corner of the screen,  _87%_. He didn't want to know what would happen when it reached  _0%_.

If he couldn't find anybody on the screens, that meant three things: he really was alone and probably imagined the sound, the person was in one of his blinds spots right outside the office or the intruder was in the kitchen where there was no camera.

Based of his experiences the previous night, he really didn't want to go back into the kitchens to check if someone was there. But on the other hand if he didn't do so, whoever else was possibly in the building would be killed the instant the animatronics saw them.

To be safe, he wandered over the the right door and pressed for the light in the hall to go on. Nobody was in the hall. He made his way to the other door and switched on the light.

There was a flash of red as Foxy darted through the hall and slammed against the door.

The entire office seemed to shake.

Mike swore he could hear the metal door groaning as if it was about to give way under the weight of the animatronic.

Foxy abruptly stopped bashing the door and vanished. Mike found he could breathe again.

He opened the door and went back to the cameras. Foxy's battle against the door had drained the power by _16%_. It wasn't even an hour into the night and he had used up more than a quarter of the power.

He sighed,  _Damn it, Foxy..._ He thought to himself. He had no idea how that thing could be Phone Guy's favourite animatronic. _  
_

Nobody was lurking outside the office. Though if there had been, Foxy would have undoubtably killed them. The last thing he wanted to do now was to go back to the kitchens, so he flicked through the cameras again in case somebody had-

A shape darted though the shadows near the restrooms. To small to be an animatronic.

_Found you._

It was then that he was struck with wondering what the heck he was meant to do next.

Going out into the halls was quite literally suicide. Sitting in the office and doing nothing and letting whoever was inside get killed was just as bad as killing them himself. On top of that, the longer he waited, the closer that person was to reaching their doom.

He groaned. He didn't want to leave the office, but...

Alright maybe if he was quick he could run out and bring them back to the office before an animatronic could get in. He could leave the left door closed like he did the previous night to prevent Foxy from getting in.

The only problem was the dining area. Three murderous animatronics were hanging around out there and the door that led to both toilets was on the other side of the room. Even if the three of them did return to the stage, the door was right next to it. On top of that, the restrooms hall was a dead end, meaning that they could easily corner him.

If he left, he was dead. If he didn't leave, the person inside would be dead.

He checked the cameras again, the animatronics hadn't moved.

Maybe he could just wait for the intruder to either get closer to his office or just leave. If they got in, surely they could get out?

Something moved in the corner of the dining room. Mike saw on the screen dotted with static the door that led to the toilet hall opening and somebody slipping into the dining area.

 _That's it, they're dead._ He thought helplessly. The intruder was just metres away from them and had no clue what they would do if they saw them.

He had to do something. He pressed the button to shut the left door in case Foxy wanted to pay his office an unexpected visit, double-checked the right hall to make sure nothing had entered it and switched the screens back to the dining area. The three animatronics had all moved their heads to stare at the newcomer who didn't pay them any mind as they looked under the tables for something.

At least now that the animatronics were distracted, Mike didn't have to charge down the hallway like a crazed maniac. He took extra care to be quiet, unsure whether or not the animatronics were sensitive to sound.

The dark dining hall loomed in front of him. He could see the animatronics and the person who crouched on the floor dangerously close to them, peeking under a tablecloth.

"Hey!" he hissed, they didn't look at him, "Hello?"

They glanced up. In the dim lighting, Mike could just make out she they were a young girl in her early or mid teens.

He furiously beckoned for her to come.

She stared blankly back at him, "What?" she called in a painfully loud voice.

"Come over here!" he tried to whisper as loudly as he could without alerting the animatronics.

"Why?"

He could see the three animatronics watching her. They still hadn't noticed him yet.

"I'll explain later, but you have to get out of here!"

"Look, I know that I'm not meant to be here. But can you make an exception just this once?"

"No!"

The panic in his voice must have made it a little louder. Bonnie's head slowly turned to him, its gaping maw revealing rows of blunt white teeth.

Well _shit._

"You have to get out of here!"

Still looking at him funny, she started to walk toward him, passing dangerously close to the animatronics.

He inhaled sharply, expecting one of them to grab her as she went by. But they didn't move. She'd almost gotten by them when with unpredictable speed, Freddy's paw had closed around her wrist.

She screamed and the silence of the dining area was shattered. Without thinking, Mike ran forward and grabbed her other wrist and tried desperately to break her free.

It took the other two animatronics a minute to register what was going on and Chica began to jerkily stumble toward Mike, one arm outstretched.

Somehow, the girl slipped out of his grasp and fell to the ground. She scrambled to her feet, eyes wide with terror. Mike backed away from Chica, who was just metres from him.

All he could choke out was: "Office. Run. Now."

She didn't need to be told twice. Together they pelted out of the dining area and down the east hall. The girl was considerably faster than him, overtaking him in seconds and disappearing into the office. He heard an exclamation of surprise and a banging sound coming from the west door. Foxy was outside.

Good thing he closed that door before he left.

He slammed his fist against the button to shut the east hall door and sank to the floor. He would have collapsed into the chair if the girl hadn't already.

For a few minutes, the only sound was the whirring of the fan, the humming of the power and the panting of the office's two occupants. Finally, the girl spoke.

"I have two things to say." she said, running a hand through her blonde-brown hair that was already drenched with sweat, "The first thing is: What the hell what that? The second thing is you tore my jacket."

* * *

Her name was Alice, she was fourteen years old. Her jacket was pretty ugly, made of yellow and green faux fur but Mike thought it would be better to keep that thought to himself.

Their introductions were brief. Mike checked all the cameras while they were doing so and to his dismay, Chica and Freddy were in the east hall and Bonnie was at the entrance to the west. On the plus side, Foxy was hiding behind its curtain in Pirate Cove so they didn't have to worry about any surprise visits from it for the moment.

"So you're trying to tell me the animatronics want to kill you?" she only sounded half convinced.

"Yep, basically." Mike said, turning the screen off. Now he had one more concern on top of the killer animatronics and low power, he also had to make sure this kid didn't get brutally killed during his shift.

Alice just nodded, "Alright." she said simply, "So why?"

"Basically, they think I'm an endoskeleton." Mike explained, sitting down on the desk. Alice still hadn't moved from the swivel chair and he hadn't asked her to, "And I was told that it's against the rules for an endoskeleton to wander around here without a mascot suit. So the animatronics would see me, think I'm an endoskeleton and try to stuff me into a suit. Which, I've also been told, is filled with wires and pointy bits of metal that would cut me up and I'd die a slow and painful death."

She blinked, "Right, ok." she said, "Do you know why they think you're an endoskeleton?"

He shrugged, "This place is old, they're probably malfunctioning or something." he didn't want to start ranting about dead children and ghosts. He wasn't certain about anything and it would for sure make him seem like a complete lunatic.

Still sitting down on it, Alice pushed the swivel chair to the left hall and poked her head out, "So how long have you been woking here? You look like you know what's going on. A month? A year?

"Two nights." he mumbled, "And I'm far from knowing what's going on. All I know for certain is that I need to stay alive. Somebody knows things, but I can't talk to him." he wasn't sure if he was talking about Phone Guy or Lex. Quickly, he changed the topic, "So what are you doing here? How did you get in?"

Alice slid back into the centre of the office, almost tipping the chair over as she ran over a pile of drawings, "I was looking for my dumb brother." she explained, spinning around a few times, "He was supposed to come home hours ago, but he hasn't. He's always poking around in places that are closed or prohibited so I guessed he might be here."

"The only person I saw on the security cameras was you." Mike told her, "Looks like you're stuck here until 6. It'll be a stupid idea to leave anytime before then."

She looked a little sad and stared forlornly out the east hall window, "You know, I used to really like this place when I was a kid..." she sighed, "My favourite animatronic back then was Fredb-" she broke off, her eyes widening. "DOOR!"

Mike barely had any time to react before the flung herself across the room and slammed on the button. He caught a glimpse of yellow behind the window. A noise that could have passed off as a sigh sounded behind the door.

"Thanks!" Mike gasped, struggling to slow down his heartbeat.

"No problem." said Alice. Despite her confident facade, he could tell she was shaking, "I never liked Chica that much."

Mike checked the cameras for Bonnie and Freddy. The latter was almost in the camera's blind spot outside the window while Bonnie was in the parts and service room.

"So what's your favourite animatronic again?" he questioned.

Alice slid back into the centre of the room, swivelling around to look at Mike, "Fredbear." she said, "He's a really old model though, I don't think they have him anymore."

 _Thank god._  Mike thought to himself. The last thing he needed was a fifth animatronic trying to kill him.

"I think he was one of the first, actually." she went on, "But he started to break down and wasn't able to roam anymore so they just left him on the stage to sing. The only thing he could move anymore was his mouth. They would have scrapped him by now, he's ancient. Plus, Freddy was always more popular when they introduced him. After the big company bought the first place, that is. Fredbear used to be the star of the show."

"Sorry your favourite animatronic got replaced."

She shrugged, "That's life, though." she said, "You live, you get some spotlight and then in the end, you're gonna die and get replaced with something new. That's how it's always been." she hesitated, "Has Chica gone yet?"

Mike switched the hall light on, grateful for something to do. Much to his relief, the hall was empty.

"Gone." he confirmed, opening the door again.

If felt good to talk with someone during his shift for once. He hadn't noticed how alone he had felt the other two nights, Phone Guy didn't really count as a companion and the animatronics were trying to murder him so they didn't exactly make him feel comforted.

A thought flickered through his mind. He didn't want to wait until he could talk to this Jeremy guy and this girl had been to the pizzeria years ago, possibly before 1987 when it closed down.

"Hey Alice?"

"Uh-huh?"

He thought for a moment, "When you last came here, was there something called the Puppet?"

She hesitated, 'Yeah, why?"

"Just curious. What did it do?"

"Honestly?" Alice said, "Next to nothing. The staff tried to put on a few shows with it, I heard from the kids at school who come here. But it freaked out the little kids. I have no clue what they did with it, probably hid it somewhere in the Prize Corner in hopes that somebody might accidentally take it home. It wasn't an animatronic, so they could afford to lose it. The company seems to have something against throwing stuff away. They tried to make it the Prize Corner's mascot at one point, wanted the kids to think it gave them gifts or something. That was a fail, too."

"The Prize Corner?"

She waved her hand dismissively, "They probably got rid of that too. They used to have little games here where you could win tickets and this annoying little animatronic that looked like a kid would giggle and give you a balloon." she rolled over to the desk and switched on the monitor, flicking through the cameras, "It looks like they got rid of everything here. Fredbear, the Prize Corner, that annoying Balloon Boy, heck it looks like they're about to scrap Pirate Cove, too!" she paused, "Bonnie."

"They're not scrapping Bon-" he suddenly realised what she meant

Without thinking, Mike hit the button for the west hall.

"My bad." he said quickly, trying to hide the colour that was rising to his face.

"It's alright, you didn't get killed." said Alice, "Do you want to sleep?"

Mike stared at her as if she had asked if he wanted to go jump off a cliff. He was about to reply when a noise sounded though the building.

He wasn't sure if it was laughing or crying or something in between. It was a lot higher pitched than the laugh he had heard earlier and sounded as if it was a child making it. A child in unimaginable pain...

He forced himself to stay in the present. So far that night, he hadn't zoned out into a horrifying hallucination and he wasn't intending on doing it again tonight. Partly because he wasn't certain if it left him venerable to the animatronics and also because there was someone else in the room and it might look pretty weird.

Feeling cold he breathed, "What was that?"

She switched off the monitor and looked over at him, "What was what?"

"That sound." he gestured around them, "Just then, there was this sound. Kinda like crying or laughing or..." he shut up when he saw the look she was giving him, "Never mind." he muttered, "I'm fine. I think you should sleep, though."

"I'm fine too." she insisted, "I'm capable and stuff..." her voice trailed away as she yawned, "On second thoughts, I accept that offer." she got off the chair and crawled under the table, curling up into a ball, "Don't mind me." she told him, "Just out of interest, when was the carpet last cleaned?"

Mike looked around, "Judging from the state of this place, I'd say not in several years." he laughed at the noise of disgust that came from under the desk. Within minutes, her breathing had slowed down.

The next half hour was thankfully less eventful. Foxy didn't bother them despite being extremely active during the first half hour of Mike's shift. Freddy seemed to have given up on chasing them and had returned to the stage with Bonnie. He couldn't see Chica anywhere, but a noise came from the kitchen that sounded almost like chewing.

Every now and again, he glanced under the desk. He didn't like the responsibility that was now placed upon him. Not that he disliked having Alice as company, he just didn't think he'd be able to live with himself if he got her killed.

The next hour had him constantly on edge, eyes flickering to the dropping percentage of power he had left and two both the doors.

He almost fell out of the chair when he heard movement beneath the desk. During the last ten minutes, he had almost forgotten Alice was down there.

"Hey, how are we going?" she murmured sleepily.

"We're going good." Mike told her, checking his watch, "It's 3:21, we have _52%_  power and neither of us are dead yet."

"Awesome." she dragged herself out from under the table and leaned against it, "My parents are going to kill me when I get home. I had to sneak out of the house but they would have noticed I'm gone by now."

"I could give you a lift if you want." the worst thing that could happen was for her to survive the night and then get killed by a mugger on the way home.

She sleepily declined the offer, "I don't live far away." she told him, checking the east hall in case Chica was outside. She crawled back into the office and stared around, a bored expression on her face.

They sat in silence for some minutes, Mike switching between checking outside the doors and flicking through the cameras. He wanted to be extra sure not to use up the dwindling supply of power for the sake of both their lives.

"Hey, Mike?"

"Yeah?"

The teenager was grinning. She pointed at a large poster of Freddy hanging on the wall, "Listen to this." she said and poked the picture of Freddy's nose. Much to Mike's surprise, a loud honking noise sounded. She snickered, "They had a poster just like this last time I came." she honked it again.

_Honk._

_Honk._

**_HOOOOOOOOONK!!!!!!!_ **

In seconds, Mike was laughing too. Having somebody around really did make everything less stressful.

Still honking Freddy's nose, Alice said, "Though you should-" HONK "-check-" HONK "-the cameras-" HONK "-in case-" HONK "-they try to sneak up on-" HONK "-us. Why is this so entertaining?" HONK. She was laughing too hard to continue.

Struggling to concentrate on the matters at hand, Mike switched the monitor back on to check on the animatronics.

Bonnie was miles away, Chica wasn't far off but it also wasn't close enough to be a threat either. Foxy was just poking its nose out of Pirate Cove and-

Where was Freddy?

_Honk, honk, honk, honk, honk_

The images on the screen blurred as he rapidly flicked through the cameras. It had to be around here somewhere...

_Honk, honk, honk, honk, honk_

Alice payed the east hall no mind as she kept pressing at the poster. Eyes shone through the gloom just metres away from them.

He slammed button and the door flew shut just as Freddy took a step forward into the light. The door just grazed its broad nose on the way down.

The two of them stared in silence at the block of metal that separated them and the animatronic.

Finally, Alice coughed nervously, "I think I'll just..." she took the poster down from the wall and noiselessly folded it up before dropping it into the wastepaper basket under the table. It made one last defeated honking sound as it settled among the trash.

As if to cover her flushed face, she turned on the light to the west hall and looked out, "Are we doing ok with the power?" she asked without turning to look at Mike.

He switched on the monitor, " _49%_." he reported, turning it off, "We're doing good."

Finally, she switched the light off and reemerged into the office, "You can go to sleep if you'd like." she suggested, "I can watch us if you want." the end of her sentences turned upward, almost as if they were questions rather than statements.

"I'm fine." he told her. That was a lie. He needed coffee and badly. But he wasn't going to risk a trip to the kitchens to make some.

"Are you sure?" she stared hard at him, "Because no offence, you kind of look like a sleep-deprived zombie."

"I'm fine." he repeated, a little harsher this time.

He knew that he shouldn't, but he felt strangely responsible for her. As if he was the only person who could carry out this task. If she tried to take his shift, she could get herself killed. No, it was much better if he stayed awake to look after the two of them.

She nodded, her shoulders sagging. "Alright, but if you change your mind..." she trailed off and fidgeted with a pen that had been left on the desk, its cap gone and ink long since dried.

At last, she blurted, "Sorry if you're mad at me for almost getting us killed."

"You didn't." he said tiredly, turning on the monitor. Freddy had finally decided to go, but Chica was almost at the blind spot so he kept the right door shut. Bonnie was nearing the left door, too and Foxy had stuck its whole head out from behind its curtains, "Get ready to shut the door when I tell you to."

He heard her move to stand by the left doorway, "Should I just sit in the corner and shut up?"

"If you want to, yeah." he honestly didn't have the energy to comfort her, he changed the camera to halfway down the west hall and Bonnie was lying in wait. He switched back to Pirate Cove and Foxy had disappeared. "Door!" he heard it clang shut. Seconds later, the sound of Foxy pounding against it echoed through the building.

Alice sighed and leaned against the desk. Mike was ready to go to sleep right then, it took all his self control to not curl up under the desk and let her take over protecting the office for the rest of the night. She seemed to sense his thoughts and repeated her suggestion but he declined it once again.

"I'll be fine." he stated.

Ten minutes dragged on, then half an hour. Chica came by again and Mike shut the door in its face, taking his frustration from fatigue out on it by flipping it off for good measure as it stared at him through the window.

Slowly, another half hour came by. It felt as if the night would never end. Encounter after encounter crept by.

Bonnie. Shut the door.

Chica. Shut the door.

Bonnie again. Shut the door.

Here comes Foxy.

The power steadily fell.

_40%_

_30%_

_20%_

He almost dozed off at one point, jerking awake just in time. He shook himself, trying to shake away the cobwebs of drowsiness that clung to his mind and checked the time. They had just over an hour left. Could he stay awake that long?

He had to.

He fumbled for the button to switch on the monitor as he glanced beside him. Alice had fallen asleep on the floor, sitting with her back against the desk and a trail of drool running from her mouth. The screen came to life and he flicked through the cameras.

Pirate Cove? No sign of Foxy. Dining area? There's Bonnie. Stage? Freddy's still there. Toilets? Empty. Kitchen? Silent. East hall entrance? There's Chica.

Just before switching the monitor off, he flicked to the next camera, the one closest to the hall on the east side. Right as the screen turned black, he caught sight of a skinny, humanoid figure standing metres from the door.

All he was able to see was it was stick-figure thin, way too tall and skinny to be human with a round, pale face. He hurriedly switched the monitor back on, but the figure was gone.

If it was right outside, it could get in at any moment. Checking under the table to make sure Alice was okay, he slowly rose from his chair.

He looked outside the east hall, turning on the light. The hall was empty.

For sure, he had seen something. Where could it be?

It was nowhere on the floor. It wasn't standing against a wall. There wasn't much to hide behind.

What if-

He glanced up.

It was dark, but he could just make out the skinny body and arms striped with white clinging to the ceiling. Its face like a mask stared down at him, purple tears painted on its blushed cheeks.

He flinched back, punching the door and light button at the same time and threw himself under the window.

The Puppet.

Had it seen him?

What was it doing here?

He didn't want to look outside to see if it had gone.

Maybe he could get Alice to look?

He hated himself for thinking that. He couldn't use a kid to do something for him just because he was too afraid to do it himself!

Maybe if he kept looking at the two cameras in the east hall, he could see it leave. He turned the monitor and flicked between the two of them. The only movement he could see was that of the static that accompanied the images. He caught sight of the power percentage in the corner.

_8%_

The bottom of his stomach felt as if it had dropped out. It was 4:56, they had a little more than an hour left.

They were never going to make it.

He had failed.

He had one job. Just  _one_ job. Don't die. That was it. Don't die and don't let anybody else die.

And he'd managed to screw that up.

But they weren't dead yet. Maybe by some dumb luck, they could both survive the night...?

The previous night, he'd been safe hiding in the freezer. He wasn't sure if the animatronics would fall for it a second time, but it was the best shot they had.  _8%_ power was all he needed to check if the animatronics were nearby before they ran down the hall to the kitchen. If they kept moving, they wouldn't freeze.

It was a dumb idea, but he couldn't think anything else up. 

Freddy was back on the stage, Chica was outside the restrooms, Foxy was peeking out of Pirate Cove...

Where was Bonnie?

It might have been at the end of the west hall but just in case, Mike checked the camera closest to his left door.

There was no animatronic, but the pictures that had been pinned on the wall had all changed. Mike had never stopped to pay much attention to them before but he was certain that they hadn't all been displaying the same image until then.

Every since worn, yellowed piece of paper depicted Freddy's face. But this didn't look like Freddy. It was golden in colour and had no eyes.

He changed cameras, but the image lingered in front of his eyes. It was almost as if this golden Freddy was standing right in front of him.

Unable to concentrate on the footage on the screen, he switched the monitor off.

And suddenly, he was rooted to the spot. It was as if something had swept over him, washing away any thoughts that might be lurking in his mind. He stood there, observing the dead body before him, the clouded eyes, the dripping blood, the limbs sticking out at odd angles.

“It's me.”

The words formed in his mouth, flowing smoothly into night.

“It's me.”

It sounded so natural for him to say it, so free.

“It's me.”

It was as if a weight was being lifted off his shoulders. A smile curled his mouth.

“It's me.”

He didn't know what it meant, nor did he care. All he knew was he was admitting to it. Whatever it was.

“It's me.”

He said it a fifth time, Alice's dead eyes staring at him.

He wanted to say it again, but the words stuck in his throat. He wanted to admit it again, he craved to. He had to.

_It's me. It's me. It's me. It's me. It's me. It's-_

Blood trickled down her face like a river, she didn't move. Her smile had long since faded, she was gone.

They were all gone.

It's me?

And then reality came rushing back to him. Mike stumbled back, his eyes wide.

“Oh my god- Alice!”

He couldn't move. What the hell had happened? She was just fine a moment ago- Had somebody gotten in? Did the animatronics do this?

His mind was completely blank. What was he supposed to do? Check the cameras? Check her vital signs? She wasn't moving.

He edged toward her and pressed his fingers against her cold neck.

No pulse.

“Holy crap.” he muttered, drawing away his trembling hand.

He was alone once again. But this time, with a corpse.

What now? Should he close her eyes? Should he carry on the shift as if nothing had happened?

 _It's me_.

The words echoed in his head.

He switched on the monitor, searching for anything to look at except Alice. He was barely even aware of what he was meant to be checking for and switched off the screen just seconds after.

He collapsed into the chair. She was still slumped against the desk. Her bleeding still hadn't stopped, soaking her jacket and shirt. Somebody had beaten her skull in with a blunt object.

_It's me._

Over the past few days, he'd been hallucinating. Having nightmares. What if-

Oh god.

What if _he_ had killed her?

His hand went to his mouth as he struggled not to puke.

He couldn't have killed her, he had no reason to.

But what if he had?

The constant paranoia he got from staying in this place- Who's to say it didn't make him snap?

He was thinking about child murders in his workplace. Now he had committed one.

 _No, no, don't think that... Don't think that..._ He begged himself, hiding his face with his hands. He tried to think up another explanation, but none came.

He had killed her.

What the hell was he going to do?

Should he hide the body? Should he pretend someone else had done it? Should he fake his own death, change his name and move states? Each idea that came was worse than the next.

He wasn't even twenty and he'd taken someone's life. This wasn't something that he could just hide from everybody, including himself. He couldn't forget this.

_Deep breaths, deep breaths. You've got to think of something. You could hide the body in the backstage, it's not like anybody goes there and it already smells bad enough. You can delete the footage the cameras will pick up of you hiding her. Or you could put her in the dumpster, nobody would check there and the body will be disposed of within a week._

He couldn't believe he was now thinking up ways to cover up a murder.

He had no idea what to do later, but for now he couldn't have a dead corpse sitting right next to him for the rest of his shift. He picked her up and carried her to the other side of the office, clearing away the stacks of drawings and boxes to make room for her. Gently, he laid her down on the ground and closed her staring eyes.

Now she was at least behind him and he didn't have to look at her.

He had to take his mind off what he had just done. He checked the time, it would be three hours until his shift ended.

When would the body start to smell? Would he have to sit in the room with the decomposing body as he tried to defend his life, knowing he had ended someone else's?

He tried to shut down those thoughts, wiping his eyes with his cast-clad right hand. He had to stay focused.

Freddy was in the dining area, Bonnie was on the stage...

He glanced behind him. Alice lay stiffly on the floor. She almost looked as if she was sleeping, save the massive dent on the side of her head.

Shaking himself, he looked back at the screen.

Chica was standing just inside the east hall, Foxy was...

Oh no...

Footsteps thudded through the hall to the left of him.

Should he close the door?

Or should he just let the animatronic get him?

If he did, he deserved it.

Foxy was in the doorway.

It screeched as it launched itself toward him.

Mike closed his eyes, bracing himself.

_Clang_

He opened his eyes. The door to the west hall had slid shut.

How could that happen?

He heard Foxy banging madly agains the door, but he barely paid it any mind.

If he hadn't closed the door, who had? He was all alone?

All alone except for-

_Clang_

The door to the east hall slid shut.

Alice was still lying where he had left-

No, she was sitting up, slumped against the wall like he had found her.

He slowly rose to his feet and tried to back away, but all that was behind him was the desk.

For a moment, he could see something else in her place. It was Freddy, but golden in colour instead of brown. Wires hung from one empty eye socket, its body was worn, torn and frayed.

And then she was back, in the same position. Her eyes were dark, like empty voids.

Natural instincts kicked in and Mike ran for the left door. He slammed on the button to open it, but the door didn't budge. He ran for the right, not caring if there was something else on the other side.

It wouldn't open.

He turned back to the young girl.

Her head had moved to stare at him. Slowly, she disentangled her limbs and drew herself to her feet.

Doubled over slightly, she hobbled toward him.

He screamed and threw himself against the door button.

She was right in front of him now. Just looking at him.

Why wouldn't the door open?

“ _Look at me_.”

It sounded nothing like her voice. The words sounded like they were being ripped from a torn throat, blood bubbling through each syllable.

He didn't want to look. He wanted to get as far away from her as he could.

“ _Look at me, purple guy._ ”

“I'm sorry, I'm sorry.”

He hated the whimper in his voice. He punched at the button, even though he knew it was hopeless.

“ _Did you do this? Did you do this to me? To us?_ ”

His legs gave way and he slid down the door, hugging his knees to his chest.

He couldn't look her in the eye.

“ _Did you kill me?_ ”

The office was silent. He nodded.

He could see her trying to crouch in front of him, but she overbalanced and fell to her knees with a loud thud. Her face was just inches from his. He could smell the death coming off her in waves.

Her form flickered. Once again, she was the golden Freddy. A moment later, she was Alice again.

“ _Did you kill my brother and his friends, too?_ ”

He shook his head and looked away.

He could feel her observing him with that empty gaze. Every second was like an hour.

All Mike could think was _Kill me quickly. Please just make it quick._

Finally, after what felt like years she moved.

She grabbed his collar and dragged him to his feet. He made no move to pull away.

Golden Freddy lifted him off the ground like a rag doll, glaring down at him. Its face was just inches from his. Tiny white pinpricks shone from deep within its eye sockets, boring straight into him.

“ _No you didn't._ ”

It let go and he tumbled to the ground.

“ _It's not you. You didn't kill them, you didn't kill me._ ”

He watched as the Golden Freddy flickered and vanished.

* * *

“Mel's gonna kill you.”

He groaned, trying to block out the voice. He didn't want to wake up, this was the first time all week that he'd had a good night sleep. Even if the floor was uncomfortably hard underneath him and the carpet stank. Despite feeling no better than when he had fallen asleep, he hadn't been plagued with some kind of ugly nightmare and that met his new requirements for a good rest.

“Hey, can you hear me?”

Somebody was shaking him. His eyes flew open to see Nikki kneeling beside him.

“And next time you try to take a nap on duty, try to make it a little less obvious.”

As he sat up, his jacket fell off him. He must have been using it as a blanket. Somebody had placed a small stack of papers under his head for a makeshift pillow. Nikki handed him a Styrofoam cup of coffee that he gladly accepted.

“And you also slept in.” she added, “Your shift ended two hours ago, I'm surprised nobody's noticed you yet.”

That meant he'd been asleep for about three hours. One of which a bunch of murderous animatronics could have killed him at any time. And this was the second time something like this had happened.

“I wasn't intending on sleeping that long.” Mike told her, sarcastically adding, “I was just going to sleep until the end of my shift.”

“What is it that boring?”

“Oh yeah, _real_ boring.” he confirmed flatly, taking a sip of coffee.

He couldn't help but think back to the last thing he had heard from Alice... Or Golden Freddy. He wasn't sure who was who by now.

“ _It's not you. You didn't kill them, you didn't kill me.”_

You didn't kill them? You didn't kill me? Was she seeking her killer, whoever that was?

“ _Look at me, purple guy.”_

Everything he'd been hallucinating and dreaming since he'd come here, it had to all be connected. Now he had a run-in with one of the children who he had seen been murdered. She kept changing into a golden Freddy. It was a little unsettling to think that most of the night, he had thought he was avoiding hallucinations. As it turned out, he'd spent almost every waking minute with one.

Were the other animatronics like her? Was the only difference between them the fact that they shot first and asked questions later?

Well, at least he wasn't a murderer. Not that the thought cheered him up too much.

Nikki was looking at him strangely, “Are you ok?”

“Sorry what?”

“I was asking if you needed me to drive you home.” she said, “You don't look good.”

“I'm fine.” he said quickly, “I can drive myself-” he didn't even try to sound convincing.

She got up, “I'm driving you, I won't trust you behind a wheel. You look like you haven't slept in a week.”

“Fine, fine.” he sighed, he wasn't in the mood to argue, “Can I at least call my mum beforehand to tell her that I'll be leaving her car here?”

“Sure, I'll tell Mel I'm taking you home.” she turned to leave the office before suddenly stopping at the door and looking back at him, “By the way, do you want me to tell her you're not coming in tomorrow while I'm at it?”

At this point, he couldn't be bothered to swear he wasn't coming back. He knew he would, no matter how much he tried to resist. “Don't bother, I can tell her. Go ahead, I'll be out in a second.” he waited for her footsteps in the hall to fade before tossing his empty coffee cup into the overflowing wastepaper basket and opening the book of employees he had left lying on the desk.

He wasn't going back home, that was for sure. Yesterday, Lex hadn't given him answers, but he'd told him enough. He flicked through the book to the very end. He couldn't wait for somebody to come and drop answers at his feet, he had to go out and find them himself. Somebody else knew about the missing children and the Bite of '87. Somebody who was there when it had happened. And Lex had set him in the right direction.

He finally found him, the second last night watch before the place had closed down six years ago.

_Jeremy Fitzgerald, Night Watch from 8th-14th November, 1987. Moved to day shift._

The files in the library had said the Bite had taken place the day after, during a birthday party. That was the same day the children went missing.

He wrote the address underneath the employee’s name down on his hand and dialled his home phone. It rang three times before his mother answered.

“ _Hey, I'm staying over at a friend's today, I don't think I'm up for driving home_.” he told her.

“ _I told you you should have come home to rest, I can get you when you want_.”

“ _No, it's ok. I can make my own way to work tonight._ ” the words were out of his mouth before he knew what he was saying, “ _I mean, I can get a lift back home. I'll get the car back tomorrow._ ”

She didn't seem to hear the end part, “ _You're not going to work tonight, I can tell it's stressing you out_.”

“ _It's not stressing me_ -”

“ _You're not working and that's final. I never thought I'd ever be the one telling you not to go to work but whatever you have to do at this job, it's not good for you._ ” Mike didn't say anything as she continued, “ _You don't have to keep it for a week, just those three days is enough.You're sick, just say you quit_.”

“I'm fine.” he said in English, hanging up the phone. His voice had come out a little colder than he had planned. Maybe he shouldn't have ended the conversation so abruptly. Not that he could change it now.

He glanced down at the address that he had written on his hand and tried his best to memorise it before he made his way out the front of the pizzeria. The employees barely payed him any mind as he passed, pushing open the front doors and stepping out onto the streets.

Nikki was waiting for him across the road, leaning against a scratched and dented blue Toyota. He gave her the address and she drove him in silence. She tried to start a conversation a couple of times but he only replied in a few short sentences.

“Thank God you live on the other side of the city.” she said, “I'm supposed to be cleaning the toilets this morning.”

“Uh-huh.”

After that, she shut up. He hoped he hadn't offended her but he was starting to speak before he thought more than usual.

They pulled over in front of an apartment block about ten minutes later.

Nikki switched the engine off, “Here we are.” she said, peering out from under the windshield, “I guess I'll just leave you here.”

Mike nodded, “Thanks.”

He said goodbye and got out, even as he reached the entrance he could feel her gaze boring into his back. Not wanting to turn back to look at her, he rang the doorbell to the apartment. It took a few seconds for somebody to reply.

“ _Hello? Who is this_?”

“Hey,” he said to the speaker, trying to think up what he was supposed to say. His thoughts had been occupied with the past events that week on the trip there, “my name's Mike Schmidt, I work at Freddy Fazbear's Pizza. Are you Jeremy?”

Pause.

Mike heard him call to somebody, “ _Hey Jeremy, did you order pizza_?” there was another pause before the man addressed Mike again, “ _He didn't order pizza_.”

“I'm not here about pizza.” Mike told him, “I work the night shift.”

That shut up the speaker for a moment.

He finally spoke again, “ _Jeremy will be right down_.”

A minute or so later, the door swung open. The man looked a few years older than Mike, but was about a foot shorter with unruly red-brown hair.

“So... You're the new night guard?” Jeremy Fitzgerald questioned, his nervous brown eyes looking Mike up and down from behind thick-framed glasses, “I guess that first night really caught you off guard, huh?”


	7. The Ones Who Came Before

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I went through the entire fic to change Phone Guy's name from Scott to Jonathan. I think the name's more fitting for my Phone Guy and it's kinda weird for me to have him named after the game's creator XD

Mike wasn't sure what to say. 'Yeah'? 'Please help me, the singing animals are trying to kill me'? 'Tell me everything you know'?

He settled with the first one, unable to think up anything else.

The apartment looked as if somebody had tried hard to keep it tidy, but another person effectively messed it up. Mike almost fell over a pile of month-old newspapers lying by the door that Jeremy dropped outside, quickly stating an apology.

“Sorry about the mess.” Jeremy mumbled, hastily darting around and trying to hide everything that was lying about from view, “I was supposed to clean it up but I never got around to it...” he kicked a pile of worn books under the couch, “I was meant to get rid of those a week ago...” he stood helplessly in the middle of the living room, looking around as if searching for something to do. Finally, he made eye contact, “So you're Mike?”

He just nodded.

“Yeah, night shift and stuff...” Jeremy's voice trailed away and his gaze slid to the wall covered in a peeling layer of paint behind Mike, “I didn't think the guard would come to me.”

Mike wasn't certain if he sounded concerned, terrified or disappointed. Maybe he was all three. He sure looked all three.

Jeremy seemed to notice his fatigue as Mike leaned against the wall to keep himself upright and gave him a sympathetic look, “Let me guess, you've been living off coffee all week?”

“I don't want to fall asleep.”

Jeremy's fingers tapped nervously against the side of his leg, “Do you need any coffee, then?” he questioned, "Anything else? Food? A shower?” his nose wrinkled slightly. It had only just occurred to Mike that he had barely washed that week. On top of that, he'd been sweating a lot during his shift. By now, he must smell strongly of perspiration, coffee and probably a bit of pee, too.

He practically fell onto the couch, “All three sound good.” he replied tiredly. All he really wanted to do was sleep, but that wasn't much of an option anymore. He didn't want to close his eyes and see the Purple Guy, or the Puppet for the matter, "But I just came here because I want some kind of answer to my questions."

Jeremy didn't look at him. He could see his face twitch, "I..." he hesitated, "I don't think I can help you. Sorry..." he couldn't meet Mike's gaze.

“Lex told me to come to you.” Mike told him. He wasn't sure why, but it felt like the right thing to say.

Immediately, something flickered behind his eyes. He glanced around the cluttered room as his hand went to his pocket and drew out a packet of cigarettes. He flicked it open, stuck one into his mouth and hesitated, “You don't mind if we go outside?” he asked around the cigarette, “Fritz hates it when I smoke inside.”

Mike just shrugged. He really couldn't care less but he didn't want to tell his host that.

Jeremy pointed to Mike's right, “The balcony's there.” he told him, “I have to go get something.” without waiting for Mike to say anything, he disappeared into the next room.

He didn't feel like he could physically get up and walk the few metres to the balcony. He stayed where he was for a few minutes, wondering what Jeremy was doing and what he would tell him when he got back.

"What made you take the job?"

A voice near him made him jump. A man slightly older than Mike was standing by the couch. He hadn't even heard him approach. The newcomer looked the opposite of Jeremy, tall, dark and moderately built, Mike guessed that he was of Native American descent. His ears and eyebrow were pierced, dark hair hanging past his shoulders and he had a rather vacant look in his brown, almost black eyes. He looked confident and in control where Jeremy was hesitant and nervous. Mike recognised his voice from the one who had answered the doorbell.

"My mum made me." Mike said, "Kind of. She just said I had to get  _a_ job. Are you Fritz?"

Fritz nodded, "Yeah." he said, his empty eyes were a little difficult to look at, "You'll get yourself killed if you keep going back. Why bother?"

"I dunno." Mike replied, "So are you and Jeremy boyfriends or something?" when Fritz didn't say anything, he added, "There's nothing wrong with it, I'm not judging you or anyth-"

"I know." Fritz said cooly.

"So are you?"

"We're flatmates, Schmidt."

"Ah." Mike glanced at where Jeremy had disappeared off to. What was he doing? "So do you have to put up with Jeremy talking about his problems at Freddy Fazbear's? Does it ever get a little weird?"

"I worked there once, so no. Not weird." Fritz answered, "He stopped talking about that place years ago. I had hoped he was beginning to forget what had happened to him before you came." his tone sounded almost accusing.

Mike didn't pay that any mind, "So why did  _you_ keep coming back?"

"I didn't. I got fired after my first night."

"For what?"

"Tampering with the animatronics and odour."

The other man sounded almost sarcastic, though it was a little hard to read his eyes. Mike had a feeling that if that was so, Fritz didn't want to share the real reason. There was no point in pressing him for it either, even in his tired state he knew it was none of his business.

He said something about having to go and dragged himself off the couch with every ounce of strength he had. His tired body protested as he stumbled toward the balcony door.

The balcony was the opposite of the living room, completely devoid of any trash or furniture. Mike sat down with his back against the cold brick wall, up here a faint breeze chilled him. He could see across the city, the gloomy downtown where Freddy Fazbear's lay lurked beside the colourful suburbs in the distance.

Jeremy returned a few minutes later with a folder that he dropped in front of Mike. He sat down opposite him, lighting his cigarette, “You're not asthmatic, are you?” he asked.

“No.”

“Right, good.” he took a long drag and exhaled the smoke, looking relieved, “I know this isn't good for me but it helps with my stress.”

“You've got a busy job?” Mike questioned, eyeing the folder.

Jeremy flicked ash off his cigarette, his eyes following Mike's, “No, I-I'm unemployed actually. I developed bad anxiety and started to get stressed out easily ever since...” his voice trailed away, “Y'know, ever since...” he glanced away and went back to his cigarette.

Mike finished his sentence for him, “Since you started working at Freddy's?” Jeremy nodded, “So what's this?” he indicated at the file.

“After the pizzeria closed down, I tried to find out as much as I could.” he laughed nervously, sounding remarkably like Phone Guy as he did so, "I mean, I have no clue now why I did it. Maybe I was curious. Maybe I thought I could do something. There's really no point in you coming here, but if you want to know what happened, I guess I can tell you to the best of my ability. I mean," he added quickly, "I don't know everything. I don't know if I can really-"

"So what's in the file?" Mike cut in. He wasn't in the mood to listen to this guy rambling. Answers were sitting right in front of him.

He opened up the file, it was a gloomy grey in colour. The papers inside had probably once been white but were starting to turn a pale shade of yellow. Inside were missing persons reports, similar to those he had seen in the library, a few pages of handwritten notes, photos of the animatronics and several newspaper clippings. Mike held up one.

_Animatronic Bites child by Day while Five Missing by Night!_

Underneath was the full article. The article that had been missing from the library yesterday.

"Do you want to start at the beginning or..." Jeremy's voice broke through his thoughts.

He slipped the article back into the folder, "Sure thing." he said.

"Right, so um..." Jeremy dug around inside the folder, "It was first run by an old couple. Freddie and Bonny Arany. They called it Fredbear's Family Diner. They only had two mascots, no animatronics. This was back in the 70s, they employed people to dress up in the suits to entertain the guests." he found a black and white picture and handed it to Mike, "It was run as a family business for ten years before Bonny passed away and Melanie Carlson bought it. She had big plans for it, she said."

Mike had a bad feeling already.

"She made it successful, though." he said, "She made it more flashy, brought in animatronics. She tried to make some kind of hybrid mascot costume that could switch from being a suit to an animatronic but..." he hesitated, "Well, let's just say that was a complete disaster. She managed to cover up the first accident just fine but um..."

"You're not making any sense." Mike told him. He knew to expect accidents at Freddy Fazbear's but he wanted to know exactly what accidents had taken place.

Jeremy shook his head stubbornly, "Forget I said anything." he said, "I might tell you later but it's not important right now."

Mike just nodded. He couldn't be bothered to argue and any excess information would just confuse him.

"So, they had this sister location. They had to move everything there because that accident had happened at the original location. Nobody wanted to go there anymore so their only hope for business was in Freddy Fazbear's Pizzeria. They made new animatronics, the four that you've met. They kept the original two, Fredbear and Spring Bonnie but after everything they had gone through, they were barely functional. They had to scrap Spring Bonnie and all Fredbear could do was stand on the stage. Heck, they took out its entire endoskeleton. The only function it had was opening and closing its mouth.

"But what really brought business in were the new animatronics. The people were just starting to get over the unfortunate accidents just a year before Zachariah happened. That led to a major drop in business, parents didn't feel safe sending their kids there. And it didn't help that after the Zachariah thing, the night watch started to disappear."

Mike felt his heartbeat quicken. The image of the Puppet flashed into his mind.

Jeremy continued, "Most guards quit a day or two after their shift. But three were never heard of again. One of them had been working the shift for almost six months before she was never heard of again. After the next few guards started to quit so soon after being hired, nasty rumours started to spread that were, as you can tell, very bad for business.

"A little after the third guard went missing, they had to close down for two years just to find the money to reopen and when they did, they did it in style." he actually smiled, "Too bad it only lasted three weeks. I almost feel bad for them, they must have spent a fortune making all those new animatronics only for them to get scrapped in barely a month."

"Why'd they close down?" Mike asked, fidgeting with his cast. Not only was it plain uncomfortable, it was starting to get itchy, too.

"Two things." Jeremy held up two fingers, "The Bite and the Missing Children. Both on the same day." he opened the folder and dropped five pages in front of Mike, “These are the reports for the missing children. This and the Bite were the biggest things to happen in the history of that place, it got shut down for two years afterward. They never really did catch the culprit.”

Mike flicked through them, _Andrew Taylor, Alice Taylor_ he paused at that one, staring down at the photograph of the person he'd shared his shift with that night. _Edward Granger, Brett Low_ and _Tessa Slate_ he stared longer at the last photograph. He remembered that little girl in the big yellow jacket he had talked with after his first night. She had disappeared when he had looked away, but he had guessed that she had just slipped away. All along, had he been chatting to some ghost girl?

He'd down that twice now. Hopefully the next ghost child wouldn't kill him.

Jeremy pointed down at Tessa's picture, “Actually, I found out later that she was Phone Guy's daughter.”

 _Poor Phone Guy..._ Mike thought to himself as he studied the little girl's smiling face. He couldn't help but wonder why that man would return to work the night shift after his daughter had gone missing in that place. Maybe it was because he didn't want it to happen to anyone else's kid? The thought created a glow of respect toward Phone Guy. That guy had been working there for years and actually quit instead of getting killed horribly and on his last week decided to record Mike some messages while defending his life.

"There are five of them." he commented.

Five murdered children.

Five animatronics, excluding the Puppet...

Freddy, Bonnie, Chica, Foxy and the golden Freddy.

"Mike..." Jeremy started quietly, pausing and lighting another cigarette, "Do you..." he broke off, exhaling pale grey smoke as he gazed across the city, "Do you believe in the paranormal?"

Honestly, before that week he would have called anybody who had suggested the idea crazy. Now, he wasn't so sure anymore.

He opened his moth to state his reply when a voice sounded behind him.

"Seriously, no. That's enough." they both turned to see Fritz standing behind them, leaning slightly on the sliding door that opened up to the balcony.

"Just because some kids died and you can too doesn't mean that ghosts suddenly exist." he stated flatly, folding his arms, "It's one thing for you to rant all this to me but it's something else to go around terrifying some traumatised night guard. The animatronics are just malfunctioning and the management is too stingy to repair them. End of story."

Mike glared at him. He hadn't known Fritz for too long, but already he was growing feelings of dislike toward him, "Didn't you spend a night trying not to get killed by these things?" he demanded, "You aught to be able to relate to us just a little. Won't you be thinking the same thing after what you went through?"

For the first time, Fritz's eyes held something. A sudden coldness.

Jeremy's wide brown eyes darted from Mike to Fritz. He didn't seem to notice that his cigarette was burning out.

He said it so quietly, Mike could hardly hear him. 

"I wish I almost got killed that night."

He turned and vanished into the apartment. Seconds later, a door slammed.

Mike turned to Jeremy, "What's with that guy?" he questioned, "It must be hell sharing an apartment with him." he was almost glad he still lived with his mother. And then he remembered how he got into all this mess.

But blaming her wouldn't make anything better.

Jeremy shifted, taking a drag as if he wanted to delay the time he had to answer Mike, "Fritz had a... Slightly different experience than what you and I had." he said at last, "I warned him beforehand what to expect. He didn't believe everything, of course. He came along for my fourth night and afterward, he said that he didn't want to play by the animatronic's rules."

"Uh-huh?"

The other man didn't look comfortable, "I don't think I should-" he began.

"Come on, what's the worst that could happen?" now that Jeremy had started, Mike wanted him to finish, "It's a thing of the past, and it can't be  _that_ bad, can it?"

Jeremy finished his cigarette, tossed the butt off the building and immediately lit another one, "Don't tell him I told you." he said, his voice suddenly hardened, free of any trembling, "If you do, he'll kill both of us. It's not something he wants just anybody to know about."

"Yeah, sure thing."

He nodded, "Fritz is a genius when it comes to robotics." he said, "He loves the things. I think that was why he wanted to work at Freddy Fazbear's, he wanted to get close to the animatronics. He joined the day before I was moved from night shift to day shift. It was the last day that we would be open, anyway. Mel had planned on closing it for a few weeks. Someone had stolen a mascot suit and she wanted to find the culprit and get it back."

He paused, glancing behind him in case Fritz was listening in and then closing the door for good measure.

"I told him the day he came in about what happened at night. It was an accident really that we ended up sharing the shift - my fourth night. After that, he told me he had everything covered for his shift the next night." he paused, flicking the cigarette and sending papery ash fluttering across the skyline like tiny moths in the breeze, "Then the next day was the day of the Bite."

"The Bite of '87?" Mike asked.

Jeremy nodded, "There were two parties that day. We didn't have enough staff. I had my hands full with one and the second I turned my back, the birthday boy's older brother had stuck the poor kid's head into Fredbear's - or as you call it, Golden Freddy's - mouth and..." he paled, hands shaking as he raised his cigarette to his lips, "It was horrible. I hadn't imagined how strong the animatronics' jaws really were until that day. His skull was crushed and frontal lobe was completely destroyed. He died days later in hospital."

"Yikes." was all Mike could say. He tried not to image the little boy's fragile skull at the mercy of Fredbear's mechanic maw.

"A-anyway," Jeremy went on, ignoring him entirely, "Jonathan and I stayed with him while we waited for the ambulance. Lex had to keep the kid's friends and brother under control while they freaked out about all the blood. I'm not sure who the person who took care of the other party, they wore this yellow mascot suit and it muffled their voice."

Mike thought for a second, "You said that a suit had been stolen." he said, "Do you think..."

"Yeah, that person was wearing that suit." Jeremy confirmed miserably, "I have no clue who was in it, it could have been anybody. Later that day, Lex and I went to check on the other party and all the kids were gone. The parent panicked, who wouldn't? Mel screamed at all of us for ten minutes before pulling Jonathan aside to scream at him some more. I was hyperventilating by then and Lex had to drive me home, constantly reassuring me that the kids were fine and nothing was my fault. We'd searched the entire pizzeria, but the kids and the person in the mascot suit were nowhere to be seen. Jonathan said that if they were for some reason still there, Fritz would find them during his shift."

"Did he?" Mike asked, even though he knew the answer.

"They found no kids the next day." he said, "They found the place covered in blood and Fritz completely delirious and holding a bloody hammer. All the new animatronics - they called them the Toys. Remakes of the original four that you know - had been tampered with. He confessed to that. So they arrested him right then and there. He'd be spending his life in prison right now if Lex hadn't gotten him the best lawyer he could. Mel was furious, of course and he quit before she could 'fire him for treason' as she had put it."

Mike was silent for a minute and then, "You're saying that Fritz was accused of killing the kids in the Missing Children Incident? They thought he killed Alice and Andy and Tessa and Edward and whoever that last kid was?" when Jeremy nodded, he said, "Do you know who really did it?"

Jeremy shrugged, looking defeated, "I tried to find out." he told him, "I poked around, tried to dig up as much history as I could. I got nothing. I had a few theories, but I had no idea how to prove them right. In the end, I gave up. Everyone had an alibi. Mel, Jonathan, Lex, heck, even the freaky old janitor Ichabod couldn't have done it. What's the point, anyway? This all happened six years ago, any evidence has long since gone. Nobody else has been killed there since the Missing Children and they're going bankrupt anyway."

"But still..." Mike turned the pages in the folder over, he looked from the pictures of the Missing Children and then at Zachariah's photo, suddenly a thought struck him, "Do you think they're the same person or different people?"

"Who?"

He held up the pictures, "The dude who killed the crying kid and the kid mass murderer. I mean, they were two years apart and they killed in different ways."

Jeremy didn't appear interested, he didn't even look at Mike, "Maybe, there's no way to tell unless they confess. And I highly doubt they'll do that."

Mike sighed, shoved the photos back into the folder and ran a hand through his dirty blond hair.

"If it's alright with you, I think I'll have that coffee now." he muttered, tipping his head back to rest it against the wall behind him. He wouldn't say no to a shower either.

Jeremy nodded, looking glad to have something to do other than smoke. He put out his cigarette and tossed it off the balcony, "I'll be back." he said before disappearing inside.

Mike watched him go. He couldn't help but think about what Jeremy had said about the Janitor. Ichabod. At that moment, he could almost picture a stooped, wheezing man with a scraggly white beard and thinning wispy hair sweeping the floors of the pizzeria. He hadn't met the janitor yet, maybe this person had retired? It had been six years after all, and Freddy Fazbear's had been closed for a while in between too.

Jeremy appeared at the door.

"Hey, I made your coffee. I don't think it'll be all that good but-"

"That's fine." Mike interrupted, dragging himself to his feet. 

The murderer of the five children was Purple Guy for sure. But what if Purple Guy really was a different person than that who killed Zachariah the Puppet?

He could barely taste the coffee. His mind was buzzing as the caffeine took over his system.

There were so many people who could be the murderer. Who could be Purple Guy. He tried to image all the people he knew were related to the pizzeria murdering kids.

Phone Guy?

_Um, hello? Hello? Please stop screaming... Look I- **CRUNCH** Sorry! Ah- I mean, prepare to die! ... I guess? I-I don't know what I'm doing..._

Lex?

_No, I won't tell you why I'm murdering you. I'm very mysterious. Stop screaming, you're ruining my mysterious appearance!_

Mel?

_Hi kids! Enjoying your pizza? NOW TIME TO DIE!!_

Ichabod the scary old janitor?

_**Cough cough wheeze** Come here, little children- I won't hurt y- AUGH! MY BACK!_

Each was getting more ridiculous than the next.

It seemed as if coming here had added more questions to his ever-growing list. Who could the murderer have been? Was it a different person that the one who had killed Zachariah? Why was Mel so bent on covering up all the disappearances and accidents? What accident did those hybrid suits cause? Was the murderer even alive? If they worked in the pizzeria, were they still working there now?

At least he wasn't alone in thinking the place was haunted. Though the thought wasn't that reassuring.

So the five Missing Children had been wandering around the pizzeria, possessing the animatronics as Mike saw it. For years, searching for their murderer. Thank god that they hadn't killed anybody yet, unlike Zachariah the Puppet.

Maybe they didn't think Mike was an endoskeleton after all.In the dark after hours, anybody could look like a murderer. The uniform for Freddy Fazbear's was purple in colour. These were children, they couldn't make good judgement. All they could remember was the colour purple and that their killer had a security badge...

To tell the truth, Fritz was the most likely suspect. Either he was really the culprit or somebody had gone out of their way to frame him. No sane person would take the night guard's badge and wear it just to kill some kids unless they wanted to pin it all on the real night guard.

He could feel a headache steadily starting to push against the inside of his skull. Hearing about a kid getting their head crushed by an animatronic wasn't helping.

All he wanted a shower and sleep. At this point, he didn't care about what he would see when he closed his eyes. Let him think he was getting beaten to death by the Purple Guy, he just wanted to rest.

He voiced this to Jeremy who pointed him in the direction of the bathroom. He also gave Mike yet another sympathetic look and said that if he needed anything, he could ask. He didn't like the note of pity in Jeremy's voice, though he didn't say anything.

At least the bathroom was clean. He was glad it wasn't the same as the living room, he'd half imagined the floor to be covered in towels and dirty laundry with mould growing between dull and scratched tiles.

He sat on the floor, letting the cold water pour over him. Maybe he shouldn't have asked for the coffee, he was wide awake right now. He'd heard somewhere that lack of sleep will kill you faster than starvation will.

On the other hand, Freddy and his gang would kill him faster than lack of sleep. Either way, his chances of survival didn't look good.

The safest thing he could do was quit and he couldn't even do that.

Maybe with the information he had learned, he could find some way to put together the pieces of the puzzle to work out who was behind everything. But if that was possible, Jeremy would have done that already and he seemed to have given up entirely

Unless  _he_ was the Purple Guy.

Now Mike was just taking shots in the dark.

If Jeremy was the killer, he wouldn't have agreed to tell Mike so much. Plus, he didn't seem the kind to kill a bunch of kids.

Unless the trauma from his shift made him snap and resort to murdering the children in an attempt to force the pizzeria to close down.

Mike groaned, he was getting nowhere. His headache wasn't getting any better, either.

What could he do? Keep poking around? Jeremy had said he'd already tried that and he hadn't gotten anywhere. The murders had taken place too long ago for the answer to just drop itself at his feet. He doubted Phone Guy and Lex would know any more than Jeremy did. Fritz probably knew even less unless he actually was the Purple Guy. But if that was the case, there was no way he'd say anything.

What about the Puppet?

He would have laughed. How was he supposed to talk to a puppet? Even if it quite possibly _did_ hold the spirit of a murdered kid, it was more likely to kill him than speak to him.

As much as he hated it, he had reached a dead end.

What would figuring out who the Purple Guy was do, anyway? Would it put the five children's spirits to rest? What about Zachariah? If there really were two killers, it would take longer for Mike to track both of them down.

Wait a second-

Since when was it Mike's responsibility to go around trying to find child murderers? He had absolutely nothing to do with anything that had happened at Freddy Fazbear's. He just worked there.

For the night shift.

And some ghost kids try to murder him each night.

That's all.

He jumped when he heard Jeremy outside the door.

"Are you ok in there?"

"I'm fine!" he called back.

"Ok, you've just been in there for over half an hour." had time really gone by that quickly? "I thought something might have happened..." his voice trailed away for a second, "Do you want clean clothes?"

Clothes that didn't smell like armpits sounded nice. He said that aloud and he heard Jeremy laugh.

"Alright, I think I've got clothes that fit you. I-I'll leave them outside the door."

Mike turned the shower off and began to shiver as the cool water began to evaporate. He grabbed a towel hanging on the rail next to he shower. He noticed how pale his skin had gotten over the past few days.

Exiting the bathroom, he couldn't see Jeremy, but the acrid smell of smoke told Mike where he was.

He found Jeremy on the balcony, leaning against the metal railing. He was just lighting another cigarette when he saw Mike. "Hey, sorry. I usually don't smoke this much." he said.

"Am I making you anxious?" Mike questioned, joining him.

Jeremy skirted around the question, "I'm remembering things I don't really want to remember." he quickly added, "I mean, that's not your fault. I don't blame you for wanting to talk. You can't really talk to anybody else about this, right? They'd just think you were crazy. They thought I was crazy."

They didn't say anything much after that. Mike stared across the city. He swore that he could just see that pizzeria from where he was, a speck in the distance.

"Fritz tampered with the animatronics, right?" he said at last, "You said he was fired for that - and also possibly killing some kids - but tampering with the animatronics. He said he did it, too."

Jeremy cast him a quizzical look, "Yeah, why?"

Mike continued, his heart suddenly racing with excitement, "So if he can tamper with them, he can shut them down? Or at least make them safer?"

"Mike, what-"

He ignored Jeremy, "Even if they are haunted, the animatronics start to roam at 12 and stop at 6. They can't move around during the day because they're programmed not to. For some reason, the ghost kids still follow the animatronics' wiring. What if Fritz could tamper with them and make them less hostile or something? Or stop them from wandering for good? Only the night watch would know because no other employees stick around long enough to see them at night!"

Jeremy didn't look as enthusiastic, "It's closing down anyway-" he began.

Again, Mike interrupted him.

"This won't be the first time it's closed down, it's done that heaps before. What's stopping it from opening again in a year or two? It's only a matter of time before somebody thinks it's a good idea to use those animatronics again."

"Yeah, alright. You have a point there." Jeremy sighed, "There's just one flaw in your plan. Other than that, it's great."

"Uh-huh?" at least Jeremy didn't think his idea sucked.

"Fritz."

"What about him?" Mike asked.

Jeremy glanced back inside to check that his flatmate wasn't listening in and said in a whisper, "He won't cooperate."

"I can make him."

Jeremy didn't look at all convinced.

"You literally just met us." he said, "Fritz isn't what you'd call trusting. I mean, I think it's a good idea, but how likely is it to work without him?"

"It won't work at  _all_ without him." Mike stated flatly, "And I know I just met you guys, but I don't know anyone else who can do anything."

Jeremy shrugged, "Yeah, but I still don't think Fritz is gonna do anything-"

"He's  _got_ to!"

The volume of Mike's voice made Jeremy jump.

"D-do you want me to talk to him or-"

"I'll talk to him." Mike cut in.

Jeremy looked a little more deflated than usual, "Please stop interrupting me..." he mumbled.

"Where's his room?"

"Please stop ignoring me, too..."

Mike couldn't help but feel bad hearing his quavering voice. It was so easy to ignore him because he seemed like the kind of person who hated conflict. But since Mike had come here, he'd put up with him and tried to help him.

Any suspicions about Jeremy being the Purple Guy instantly melted away.

"Sorry."

Jeremy just lit another cigarette, "His room's the one closest to the front door." he muttered, turning away from Mike to look back across the city.

The door was shut, no sound coming from behind it. Mike began to question whether this was a good idea. Before he could stop to reconsider, he knocked.

It took a few seconds for Fritz to answer. 

He'd changed into a sleeveless black shirt, exposing his strong arms. Definitely strong enough to overpower and murder five kids.

Maybe it would be a little easier to get along with Fritz if Mike stopped considering him to be a child murderer.

"I need you help." Mike began. He couldn't read Fritz's expression so he went on, "You're the only person I know who can change the animatronic's programming, so-"

"No."

"I'm not finished-" Mike began.

"No."

"Can you just let me-"

"No."

This must be what it was like to be Jeremy.

Mike took a few breaths to calm himself and said in the most even voice he could possibly muster, "Can you please hear me out?"

"I already have." Fritz said, folding his arms, "You want me to go back and reprogram the animatronics like what I tried to do in 1987. I was arrested and accused of being a killer." he didn't look at all surprised at Mike's expression, "I know Jeremy told you, it's just the sort of thing he'd do. He's too trusting."

"So... That's a yes?" Mike tried meekly.

"There's no point, they're closing at the end of the week anyway, I hear." Fritz said, "If there's something wrong with the animatronics, the management will find it."

"Not if they're haunted by dead kids."

He saw Fritz tense.

"I'm not going back."

"It'll only be a matter of time before people are gonna start to die!" Mike insisted, "Phone Guy survived but he's not working there-"

"People have  _already_ died." Fritz cut him off, "I'm not going back to that freak show, Schmidt. That's final." before Mike could say anything else, he shut the door in his face.

He stood in front of the door for a minute.

_Well, that went horribly._

What now? Was he supposed to go back to work with no less of a risk of getting killed brutally?

That sounded about right.

He sighed, why did he have to think he was responsible for everything? What happened in 1987 had nothing to do with him and what might happen in the future had nothing to do with him, either. _  
_

Still, he was the one defending his life every night. He didn't want anyone else to have to go through what he was. Especially with the knowledge that people had died before him.

"Tell me if you change you mind!" he called at the door.

"Go away!" came the reply.

Jeremy was hovering in the living room, he'd finally stopped smoking for now. Though he still held his half-empty cigarette packet in one hand, nervously flicking it open and shut.

"I told you, he won't listen." he said, "He's never even been _near_ that place in years."

Mike just sighed, "I need sleep." he said, collapsing onto the couch, "Don't wake me up. Even if it's time for me to leave for work. _Especially_ if it's time for me to leave for work."

Jeremy nodded, "I'll just lock the door in case you sleepwalk or something."

"Thanks."

"No problem, i-it's been a tough week."

 _Hell yes, it has been._  Mike thought to himself as he closed his eyes.

* * *

 The thrill of the kill was something that could never be matched.

The pure exhilaration, the feeling of adrenaline racing, blood boiling... That was something that never in an entire lifetime could be recreated.

They were nice children, of course. To see them laughing as they sat together, eating, playing, then drawing their final breaths. It was nice to end their lives then. It's a cruel world. All people will die. It's only natural.

Nobody will know. This is just another mystery that will go unsolved, lying in the form of some files at the bottom of a detective's desk. Of course, people would be desperate to figure it out at first. But eventually, the public won't care anymore. It will just add to the local lore and horror stories.

You can't save them.

It's me.

* * *

When he opened his eyes the phone was ringing.

He was back in the office.

He waited for the Purple Guy to come in with that hammer of his, but the only movement was that of the metal fan on the desk spinning, rattling loudly as it did so.

Any second now...

All he could hear was the whirring of the fan and the ringing of the phone.

This _had_ to be just another messed-up nightmare. How could he have gotten to the office?

For the first time ever, he was wishing Purple guy would just hurry up and find him.

The phone kept ringing.

He was back in his smelling work shirt. This couldn't be real.

No matter how much he wanted to convince himself otherwise, he knew that he was awake. And it was 12.

They were once again coming for him.

Before the phone could stop ringing, he hit the 'speaker' button. Maybe Phone Guy had something to say at last. He's spent years taking this shift, he had to have gone through something similar.

“ _Hello? Hello?”_

Check the cameras. Bonnie and Chica were already gone. Foxy was peeking out of the curtain. Freddy had moved a few metres.

Phone Guy sounded tired, but there was an edge to his words, _“Hey, night five! I knew you could make it...”_

_**BANG BANG BANG** _

Mike whirled to face the west hall, but the door was open. Foxy had not yet reached him. Where could the sound be coming from then? He turned the monitor back on and hurriedly flicked through the screens.

Unless...

He stared down at the red phone sitting on the desk.

Phone Guy kept talking, _“Um, look, I-I'm sorry but I don't think I'll be around much longer to record you messages. It's... It's been a-”_ _ **BANG BANG**_ _“-It's been a rough night for me...”_

This can't really be happening. Mike forgot about the monitor and fixed his gaze on the phone.

“ _Listen,”_ Phone Guy coughed nervously, _“maybe when you can, I-I'd like it if you went to the backstage and... And had a proper look in there? Th-that's where they keep all the spare suits and stuff, I always wondered what was inside them. I-I mean, I hope I'm wrong. But...”_

He should have checked the cameras, but he couldn't move.

_**BANG BANG BANG** _

“ _I-I might just wait here. Night's almost over. M-maybe someone will come in to check on me.”_ he didn't sound convinced at all, _“I'm going to be fine. D-don't worry about-”_

A metallic creaking sounded in the recording.

“ _Oh no...”_

A garbled mumble, heavy footsteps.

“ _Oh God no... No no no NO NO NO-”_

It was faint, but Mike swore he could hear a harsh whisper in the recording.

_“Purple Guy...”_

There was a clanking sound as the phone was dropped. Even then, Mike could make out the other guard's fading screams as he was dragged out of the office.

Barely a second later, Foxy's footsteps sounded as it charged down the hall toward him.


	8. Night Four: Defending Your Life

Door.

He went to hit it with his right arm, but the sling made it immobile. He hurled himself against the button and the door flew shut.

How had he gotten back here?

**_BANG BANG BANG BANG BANG_**

He struggled to get a grip on reality, but he honestly wasn't sure what reality was anymore.

The phone had gone quiet, but the call hadn't ended yet. He hung up and switched on the monitor.

All he had to do was survive this night.

Just survive the night and then figure out what to do.

Bonnie was already halfway down the west hall. How had it gotten there so quickly? Even Freddy had left the show stage and he was barely five minutes into his shift.

This was going to be a rough night.

Check cameras, turn off to save power, check doors, sit in the room, check cameras ag- Gotta find Bonnie! Shut door, check cameras, check door, Bonnie gone, open door, find Chica, check hall, nothing there, check kitchen, listen, something's there, look for Freddy, Bonnie's left the stage again, where's Chica?

CHECK PIRATE COVE

Foxy was back already.

He punched the door button with his left hand.

How had Phone Guy survived so long?

Though to be honest, they did eventually get him.

Mike wasn't expecting the thought to be so heartbreaking. After all this time, every night a challenge for survival, Phone guy was going to finally retire only to be killed at the end of his last week. He'd spent years sitting right where Mike was sitting, all alone, adjusting to the behaviours of the animatronics. Heck, who's to say he didn't go through all those hallucinations, too? The person who could have murdered all those children, including his daughter might well have been one of his coworkers that he saw every day.

Now his body would be decaying inside a mascot suit somewhere.

Another awful thought struck Mike: Phone Guy had been rotting for a week in this very building that Mike had come every day.

The left door fell silent and Mike opened it, peeking into the hall as he did so.

Nothing.

Cautiously, he slipped back into the centre of the office.

_Deep breaths, deep breaths, treat this like it's just any other ni- Oh holy SHIT!!!_

Something was outside the right window, looking in at him. He almost tripped over in his mad scramble for the button.

_I'M DOOMED I'M DOOMED I'M DOOMED!!!!!!_

Now there were two things staring in at him. Wide blue and pink plastic eyes glowed through the darkness.

He had Freddy and Chica on one side, was there anything on his left? He switched the west hall light on.

He swore he could just make out something at the end of the corridor.

Just in case, he shut that door, too.

_Wait, what am I doing?_

He opened the door again. he couldn't go around wasting power so soon into the night!

Were Freddy and Chica gone yet- Nope, still there. Keep that door shut.

Check the west hall cameras, there's Bonnie. Gotta keep an eye on it.

_Almost forgot to take a look at Pirate- Gotcha, you freak!_

_Yes, Freddy and Chica are finally gone! Now-_

_Wait, Bonnie!_

_Oh god, it's right outside- Ha! I dare you to come in now you-_

_**BANG BANG BANG** _

_\- And there's Foxy!_

_Ok, gotta multitask. Open the door. Gotta keep an eye on all four of you, just like I've done every single night this week. I can make it, I've done it three times before. Twice I slept through part of the shift. I'm going to be fine!_

_Just be like Phone Guy! He's survived heaps of nights!_

_... And then died, but that's besides the point!_

_Get past tonight. That's all you've got to do. Get. Past. This. Night. You hear me? After tonight, you are gonna go and make Fritz listen. Or quit. Or both. Yeah, do both. But you can't quit if you die tonight. So don't die!_

_Damn, this cast is itchy. Will it really take six or so weeks to come off..._

_Pay attention!_

_Where's Freddy? Dining area. Where's Bonnie? Supply Closet. And uncomfortably close to the camera, too. Where's Chica?_

_Chica, Chica, Chica, Chic- There, outside the restrooms._

_Ok, there you three are, what's happening over at Foxy's end? Stop looking at me like that!_

_The power's fallen to 90%, it's just 12:20, better turn the monitor off-_

_What the hell is that noise?_

_Thunder?_

_Oh great, now there's a storm._

_Just no blackouts. Please, no goddamn blackouts._

_This night's just getting better and better._

_Nothing's nearby, good. Breathe. Breathe. Breathe._

_... Check cameras again now..._

_Alright, still doing fine. You're doing good, you're doing good._

_Just... Over five hours left..._

_You can make it._

_Gotta concentrate, check outside, nothing's th-_

_BONNIE BONNIE BONNIE BONNIE_

_To close the door or not close to door? Now that's a real question._

_Maybe check the other door in the meantime. Anyone here? No? Awesome! Close left door._

_What about Foxy? Is that thing incapable of looking away from the camera? It's extremely unsettling. Also, that hook. It looks unnecessarily sharp. It doesn't look like something that should be on display for children. Looks like it can easily rip your throat out._

_Not a nice thought. Think about something else! Butterflies! Rainbows! Gameboy! Bunny rabbits-_

_GIANT BUNNY RABBIT TO THE LEFT!! HELPHELPHELPHELPHELP_

_Shut the door! Awesome, now safe from Giant Bunny Rabbit and Pirate-_

_SON OF A- It's ok, that's just Foxy banging on the door. You're safe, you're sa-_

_GODDAMN THUNDER!!!!_

_Oh crap, did the lights just flicker? They'd better not go out..._

_Check left door, Bonnie and Foxy gone, nothing else is near yet. Better see what time it is- 1am already? Gotta keep this up. How much power? 83% Ok, good, good. Doing good._

_How did I get here?_

_Did I walk here? Was I taken here? Is this all just some kind of extremely realistic dream?_

_Who would have taken me here? Jeremy wouldn't have let me leave on his own unless he took me here, but why would he?_

_Am I going crazy?_

_Probably._

_Door._

_Camera._

_Door._

_Wait._

_Camera._

_Wait._

_Wait._

_Wait._

_Camera._

_Door._

_Door._

_Camera._

_Wait._

_Door._

_Camera._

_Camera._

_Camera._

_Door._

_Wait._

_Time?_

_2:37_

_Door._

_Power left?_

_68%_

_Not good, not good._

It's not as if Mike was  _trying_ to waste power. He only shut the doors and checked the cameras when he felt he had to.

Damn this company and their stupid energy-efficient rules!

 _One more night_ . Mike thought desperately, restraining the urge to switch the monitor back on as he glanced at the doors on either side of him,  _Just this one more night and you can leave. This company doesn't need a guard for their last night in business._

_Ok, you can do this. Just be extra careful for the rest of the night and you can get to 6am. You're gonna be fine, you're gonna be fine._

_Yeah, you're really starting to sound like Phone Guy..._

_Check doors, they're good. Check cameras, Freddy's getting close. Bonnie and Chica are as far away as you can get in this building and Foxy's just visible behind its curtain._

_Come at me, creepy ghost kids! Just try and stuff me into a suit!_

_... Actually, maybe_ don't _do that._

_Bonnie's the fastest, so make sure to keep an eye on it, too. And Foxy as well, that one's unpredictable. But don't forget about Chica in the meantime-_

_Screw it, look out for them all. No exceptions._

_Including Golden Freddy - Fredbear. Whatever it is. Not sure how it appears, but look out for it._

_And the Puppet._

_Yeah, so just... Look out for everything. Even that cupcake Chica carries around. God knows what kind of demons could be lurking behind those cute eyes and pink frosting._

_They're closing in on every side, check your left, check your right. Nothing's there? Good. Where are- Gah, that's way too close!_

_Close the door? Close the door? Don't close the door. Not yet. Just wait a little longer..._

_Is anything else nearby? Where is that-_

_Right, time to shut that door!_

_Damn it, what time is it? It's probably only been three minutes or-_

_3:39???_

_Over half an hour? How the heck-_

_The second you get out of here, you're sleeping. It doesn't matter if you have to be handcuffed to your bed to stop you from coming back, but you really, really need sleep._

_Weird, if it's been just half an hour, the animatronics don't seem too acti-_

_AAAAAAAAAUUUUUGGH!!!!!!!!_

_DOORDOORDOORDOORDOORDOOR!!!!!!!!!!!!_

_That was close!_

_Power?_

_45%_

_Ok, that's weird. That's really weird. Time couldn't have passed that quickly._

_There's got to be coffee in the kitchen..._

_No Mike, you're not going to go make coffee now. Bad idea, very bad idea._

_Just... Stay alive. Maybe the rest of the night will go this quick-_

_What the hell?_

_Am I bleeding?_

_Oh crap!_

_Crapcrapcrapcrap-_

_It's not so bad, doesn't look too deep. Doesn't hurt too- Ouch, crap, no it hurts. At least it's on my right arm, it's already damaged. The cast must have stopped the cut from getting longer. Looks like something sharp tried to rip it open._

_Holy crap, something's running down the west hall-_

_Door._

_**BANG BANG BANG BANG** **BANG**_

_How do you forget something like that?_

_Check other door, maybe something-_

_CLOSE THE DAMN THING_

_One of the animatronics must have gotten close to catching me. Gotta be careful... More careful than I'm already trying to be..._

_Now that both the doors are shut, you're safe to check for any other nasty things creeping up on you._

_Dining area, stage, backstage, restrooms, west hall-_

_Ooh crap, what the hell?_

_All the pictures on the wall have Fredbear on them? Something like this happened last night before it-_

_SHIT THERE IT IS THERE IT IS THERE IT IS_

_Don't look don't look look back at the camera be still maybe it won't see you maybe it will go away don't move how did it get in when both the doors are shut this makes no sense I want to go home is it gone I don't want to check ok just for a second is it-_

_Gone._

_Look around, make sure. Is she_ really _gone?  
_

_Ok, check cameras. Can you open the doors again? Right, open-_

_NOPE, CLOSE THAT DOOR AGAIN_

_Other door? Is it safe? Positive? Right, good._

_What time is it now?_

_3:40_

_3:40?_

_It has literally been just_ one minute _!_

_Son of a-_

_On the bright side, at least there have been no weird, freaky hallucinations yet. Yay._

_Check door again, has it- Alright, good. It's gone._

_Maybe just wait now. Save power, save yourself._

_..._

_Ok, there's gotta be something waiting right outside now. Is-_

_Yep, good thing you looked. And stay out!_

_If this is bad, I don't want to stick around to see what tomorrow's like. I'll be dead for sure._

_Don't think about that now, think about staying alive now. Worry about tomorrow when some homicidal dead kids aren't trying to kill you._

_The lights-_

_Ooh crap..._

_Did they just flicker again? I_ swear _they just flickered again._

_If they go out, I'm dead._

_Can this storm hurry up and pass?_

_Don't think about that, either. Just concentrate on not getting killed._

_Door?_

_Door._

_Camera._

_Camera._

_Camera._

_Wait._

_Door._

_Wait._

_Camera._

_Door!_

_Camera._

_Wait._

_Camera._

_Wait._

_Camera._

_Door._

_Door._

_Camera._

_Wait._

_Cam-_

_GOLDEN FREDDY FREDBEAR WHATEVER!!!!!_

_CHANGE CAMERA CHANGE CAMERA DID THAT DO ANYTH-_

_Office is empty._

_Oh thank god._

_Camera._

_Door._

_Check power._

21%

_Time?_

_4:16_

_Son of a-_

_DOOR_

_I'm never gonna make it..._

_No, stay calm. Stay calm. Maybe they'll leave you alone? Or at least suddenly move a lot slower?_

_Do you think they'll see you if you hide underneath the desk?_

_Probably._

_Door._

_Camera._

_Door._

_Wait._

_Something's here._

_Left door?_

_Right door?_

_Ceiling?_

_Behind you?_

_Under the desk?_

_Something's here._

_Shut both the doors. Can it still get in? Fredbear could still get in when both doors were closed._

_But this isn't Fredbear. It feels different._

20%

_I know I shouldn't keep the doors closed like this, but..._

_Something's here._

_It's watching you._

_Don't move, maybe it'll go away._

_No wait, you have to move. Don't forget about the other animatronics._

19%

_Maybe it's on the cameras?_

_But then if I try to check, the power will fall more._

_What if I just sit here and close the door whenever something appears right outside the office?_

_That's a terrible plan._

_But it's not like there's much else I can do._

_Right, sit in the middle. I can just reach the door buttons from here. I'll just have a second to react if something does appear._

_Down the left hall..._

_It's been a while since I checked on Foxy..._

_SHUT THAT DOOR_

_Lights are flickering again._

_Don't switch off, don't-_

_I'll be ok._

**_BANG BANG BANG BANG BANG_ **

_... Or not..._

5%

_Look left, look right, check the time._

_4:45_

_How did- Time couldn't have passed_ that _quickly! What-_

_Blood._

_Not again!_

Mike's jacket and shirt were torn, in the dim light he could make out the glimmering red that seeped from his left shoulder. The blood was flowing considerably heavier than the small cut on his right arm.

Something had gotten in twice and he couldn't remember anything. What was wrong with him?

A lot by the looks of it.

Painfully, he untangled his jacket off, wincing as his shoulder and arm stung as the fabric dragged against the cuts. He took his sling off and kicked it under the table. Checking both doors for animatronics, he struggled to bandage his shoulder with one slightly immobile wrist while making sure nothing snuck up and killed him.

Finally, he dropped his jacket on the floor in defeat and fell down into the office seat. He wasn't bleeding  _that_ heavily. It was streaming down his arm and all, but he probably wouldn't bleed out before 6am. Maybe. Possibly. As long as nothing else decided to come in and cut him up some more.

Thunder rumbled overheard. The lights flickered again and Mike's heart almost stopped.

He would have loved the night to just end right then and there.

Sadly, that was not possible.

_Left corridor._

_Right corridor._

_Nothing._

_Nothing._

Well, at least he was safe.

For now.

One hand pressed against his shoulder. Maybe the bleeding would slow down soon? Maybe it'll stop? Maybe he won't run out of power? Maybe the animatronics won't kill him tonight?

He knew nothing. And that was extremely unsettling.

With his other hand, he switched on the light in the right hall. He flinched slightly in pain as the gash was pulled at. Thankfully, nothing was waiting out there for him.

His hand was soon soaked with his own blood. This wasn't good.

Mike turned the monitor on, he had to check to see what Foxy was doing. The animatronic had fully emerged from behind the curtain, plastic eyes fixed on the camera.

_4%_

He still had ages left until his shift ended. Too much time.

Staring at the monitor, he watched the percentage drop some more.

_3%_

Too much time.

He turned the monitor back off and checked the doors though he knew deep down that there was no escaping the undesirable fate that was creeping up on him. Not wanting to risk turning on the lights, he stared hard into the left corridor even though he knew he could never see through the choking darkness that filled the halls.

Giving in, he pressed the light switch. Even if it was for a split second, he had to know if something was-

He frowned and pressed the button again.

And again.

And again.

The hallway stayed dark.

He kept punching at the button as if that would fix the problem.

_What the-_

_Son of a-_

_Why don't you work?_

He leaped back in panic at the sound of frenzied footsteps ahead of him and slammed his fist against the door button right at Foxy's red figure appeared right in front of him.

He staggered, falling and landing on his back. He lay there for a second, unable to breathe as the animatronic threw itself against the door.

_**BANG-**_

That was it before the lights flickered. They didn't turn back on.

The fan stopped spinning.

The door slid open.

Thunder crashed overhead.

A chime began to play. A gentle, soft, tinkering melody that did not at all suit the environment. Mike recognised it as the Toreador March.

He could make out a face, just the eyes and teeth glowing white in the doorway ahead of him.

They flashed on and off. Freddy seemed to be leering at him.

_Play dead, play dead._

_Don't move. It might not see you._

He was right beside the desk. Maybe he could inch toward it and hide?

The jingle carried on.

He shifted his feet and shuffled a little toward it, freezing as pain shot up both his arms.

The song was coming to an end. He had to move fast.

Ignoring the blood dribbling down his left arm, he pushed himself under the desk, not taking his eyes off the glowing face.

He was half under now.

The last few notes of the chime played and the face stopped glowing, plunging the office into suffocating darkness once more.

* * *

Freddy was right next to him.

He'd just managed to push himself completely underneath the desk just as the jingle had finished.

He didn't dare to breathe.

The animatronic shifted, clumsily turning on its large legs as it surveyed its surroundings.

It knew Mike was in here.

It had seen him.

He pressed himself against the wall, curling up to as small as he possibly could.

_Don't look down here, don't look down here..._

Finally, after what seemed like forever, the bear animatronic lumbered out. Its footsteps sounded unusually soft for its massive size.

Shoulder burning, lungs bursting, he poked his head out from under the desk. He let out a long breath.

So, he was alive.

For now.

He couldn't hide under the desk forever. Freddy would be back. As will Bonnie and Chica and Foxy. And what about Fredbear?

Or the Puppet?

Whatever was coming for him, it would find him sooner or later.

He had to get out of here.

Which was undoubtedly the dumbest thing he could do. But at the same time, it was the smartest thing.

He had no lights, no doors. Nothing to protect him from the animatronics anymore.

Running away had never been his first choice when it came to anything, but it was the best choice he could make tonight.

Ducking back under the desk, he tried to figure out the best way to get out.

Foxy had just come through, so he could leave through the west hall. However, that was the route Bonnie always took and that was the most active animatronic. He was most likely to find that thing if he tried to go that way.

There was the east hall, Freddy had returned back to the show stage so it wouldn't be bothering him for now. But on the other hand he hadn't seen Chica in a while and there was a massive chance that it was passing through there right as he was thinking this up.

Also, that was where he had seen the Puppet the previous night.

And if he stayed in the office, Fredbear might appear.

He shifted, slipping on the blood that he was smearing against the wall and desk. The longer he waited, the more blood he lost. 

Eyes darting around the office, he tried to make out his surroundings. He couldn't see more than a metre in front of him. In this darkness, he wouldn't be able to see if an animatronic was right in front of him.

Breathe, breathe.

_This is just like the second night. When you got stuck in the kitchen with Chica. Just try to stay low until you get to the front door and then run for it. Just hide behind any obstacles that might be lying around in the halls._

_... Are there even any obstacles lying around in the halls?_

_Too late to check the cameras to find out._

Maybe he could just crawl through the corridors? As long as the animatronics didn't look down or step on him, he might be alright for most of the journey.

And then he also had to hope that neither of his arms gave way. His right arm was fine, but his fractured wrist was starting to get sore beneath the cast and his right shoulder still hadn't stopped bleeding.

Should he wait for Chica to come into the office before he left or should he just leave now?

No, don't wait. Don't hesitate.

He tried to peek out from under the table but overbalanced and fell onto his face on the office floor. His shoulder hit the ground and he landed on top of his fractured wrist.

Hissing swear words under his breath, he dragged himself of his knees and crawled over to the office's east entrance. Despite the fact he knew he wouldn't be able to see anything through the gloom, he peered into the hall.

He wondered if the animatronics could see him.

Half crawling, half limping, he made his way forward a few metres before he crashed into something. He almost screamed before he realised it was just a cardboard box. He pressed his back against it as he struggled to slow down his racing heartbeat.

Right before he was going to return to painstakingly crawling toward the dining area, he heard something on the other side of the box. A moment later, he could see a towering yellow figure appear beside him.

His blood turned to ice. He felt like he was going to be sick. Afterward, he was certain that was the moment he peed himself.

Chica paused, its large head swivelling to look left, right and then all the way behind it. It didn't move, head turned 180 degrees around.

Finally, its head spun around to look in front of it and it trotted toward the office door.

Mike's eyes were so wide, he could feel tears stinging at them.

It passed by him.

 _If it turns around_ now, he thought,  _it'll see me. I'll be in plain sight._

Without stopping to think of anything more clever to do, he stumbled out from behind his hiding place and dived behind the other side of the box.

Silence.

Had it heard him?

A few seconds later, it came back by him. But this time, it didn't pause to look around.

He exhaled.

Somehow, he was safe.

At least, for the time being.

There wasn't much else to hide behind in the east hall, but Chica had returned back to the show stage.

But there was something nagging Mike. He felt as if he had forgotten something. Something he had heard at some point during the week. But he'd heard too much over these last few days and he could barely think properly over the adrenaline rushing through him and the lack of sleep.

Whatever if was, it could wait.

He was almost at the dining area. It was much darker than he had seen it the last few nights, the tables and show stage were lost in the darkness.

At least now, there were more places to hide. The tablecloths that covered the tables provided good cover.

Checking to make sure Bonnie and Chica weren't close (not that he would have seen them if they were), he ducked under the closest table.

The thunderstorm had passed, leaving the pizzeria in dead silence.

Were those footsteps?

If they were, they were way too far away to be of any trouble for him.

He sucked in a deep breath and peeked out from under the table, feeling remarkably like Foxy peeking out from behind its curtain as he did so.

He didn't expect to see anything.

Without waiting for a shape to appear among the blackness, the threw himself under the next table, yelping as his shoulder gave way.

Oh great, just great.

This was turning out to be  _exactly_ like the second night.

Except for the fact he also had a bleeding shoulder and more animatronics coming to kill him.

Fantastic.

Hissing in pain, he pressed his hand clad in his cast against the wound. Most of his purple shirt had been dyed red by then and his entire arm was stinging and burning.

Desperately, he checked his watch.

5:36

If only time could move just a  _little_ faster...

Somewhere in the dining area came a metallic groan followed by a shuffling sound. Mike stiffened, his fingers digging into his bloody shoulder despite the agony it caused.

Minutes dragged by, he heard nothing else.

Gathering up his courage, he ducked under the third table. The entrance was just metres in front of him.

He waited, straining to hear if anything was near him.

_It's now or never._

He burst out from his hiding place and sprinted toward the doors. He could see the lights on the street faintly glowing grey behind the curtain that covered them.

Slamming into the doors, he grabbed on the handle and pulled.

It was locked.

Cursing, he fumbled through his pockets. It had to be on him, how else did he get inside in the first place?

His pockets were empty.

A large furry paw closed around his wrist.

Oh.

_Oh._

He'd remembered what he'd forgotten now.

Phone Guy had said it himself.

_"Freddy doesn't really seem to move around that much except in the dark when all the power's out..."_

Well, he had run out of power. And Freddy certainly was more active.

The two of them stared at each other, their blue eyes meeting.

Fazbear and Schmidt. Neither of them moved.

And then-

Mike screamed.

He threw himself against the door.

_Open! Open! Please, open!_

_I don't want to die! I don't want to die! Not here!_

_Please! I don't want to die!_

_Get away from me, get-_

The animatronics were stronger than he had imagined. He writhed in Freddy's grip, clinging onto the door handle.

He was crying as Freddy dragged him away from the door.

All he could see was darkness and pairs of gleaming animatronic eyes.

All he could hear was his own screaming, crying and begging.

And then a voice joined his, soft, yet though he was somehow able to hear it. A little boy's.

" _Purple Guy..._ "

He wanted to cry  _'I'm not him! I didn't kill you!'_ but it came out as an incoherent jumble of sobs.

He had no idea where they were now. He struggled against Freddy's iron grip in a useless attempt to break free.

The voice was trying to say something else, but he didn't care.

He just didn't want to die.

His blood had soaked into Freddy's fur and he slipped out of his grasp, landing clumsily at the bear's feet. He stumbled, trying to get to his feet but his legs collapsed. He lay in the slowly growing pool of his own blood as Freddy picked him up again.

"Please..."

That was all he could say. It came out more as a whimper.

He could smell a foul odour, like a decaying corpse.

"Please!"

It seemed so far away, but he could swear he heard something.

The Westminster Chimes?

Was this real?

He had no idea anymore.

All he was aware of was a girl crying what sounded like his name and the smell of cigarette smoke before he lost sense of his surroundings completely.


	9. Strings

_"I killed him."_

The voice was quiet, though certain.

_"This is all my fault, everything that's happened... I started it all."_

Pause.

_"Do you think this could have been avoided if I hadn't made that dumb mistake?"_

He was surrounded with darkness. Or were his eyes just closed? He didn't know. He didn't care.

Being dead wasn't as bad as he'd imagined it to be.

It was like he was wrapped in a thick, black blanket. He didn't have to move, didn't have to talk, didn't have to think. He was finally free.

Free to float in this never-ending nothingness. Nothing was there to torment him. For the first time in what felt like a thousand years, he felt at peace. Alone in this vast emptiness where it seemed only he existed and yet...

Did he really belong here?

Dead was where Phone Guy was. Where the murdered children where. Where the four guards who had gone missing were. Zachariah was dead.

He didn't feel dead. He just felt... Empty?

If being dead meant either living among the clouds in an eternal paradise or burning in everlasting agony in a blazing pit beneath the earth, this was nowhere near. No angels, no demons, no nothing. Just Mike and the unchanging darkness.

But wherever he was, it wasn't that bad. He couldn't feel anything anymore. No pain from his shoulder and he felt like if he wanted, he could freely move his arm without damaging the fracture. There probably wasn't a fracture there anymore.

So he was dead, right? At peace, may the memory of Mike Schmidt live forever in the hearts and minds of his family and friends, blah, blah, blah.

Oh crap, what would his mum do?

He shouldn't have gone back to that place. He should have forced himself to keep away.

Well, he couldn't do anything now. It was too late.

Would the staff find his body? Where had Freddy left him, anyway? Maybe they'll follow the trail of blood to find his carcass stuffed inside a mascot suit. What then? Would they hide it? Bury it in the back yard of the property? Burn it? Throw it off a cliff? He highly doubted that it would be handed over to the police.

He was just yet another missing person. What a shame, Fazbear Entertainment's reputation to be tarnished by his disappearance.

Did the missing children have this same thought pattern?

Did they wonder where their bodies had gone? Nobody had ever found them, either. Were they still in the pizzeria, their bodies decaying over the years until they were nothing more than five skeletons hidden within the pizzeria they once loved?

Where would one hide a body, anyway? Why would Purple Guy hide the bodies anyway if they were pinning the murders on somebody else? If Purple Guy didn't hide the bodies, who did?

_Hang on, you're dead now. No thinking, no caring. Just keep lying here in the abyss of nothingness. Nice and peaceful, see?_

... And then there was the question as to why the children would haunt the animatronics specifically? Just the animatronics. No blood dripping from the walls or other paranormal activity Mike had seen in movies. The animatronics just had been inhabited by their spirits.

The animatronics killed people by stuffing them into suits. Nobody had found the guards in the suits because nobody ever checked there. The animatronics already had endoskeletons, but a child would be small enough to hide inside...

Oh gross.

In that case, Mike had been stalked by a bunch of robots with human skeletons inside them as well as ghosts.

This was not his lucky week.

So the kids were in the animatronics. Everything in the pizzeria had changed every time it had reopened except the animatronics. Nobody had opened them up enough to find the bodies and nobody would think that any bad smells coming from them were corpses because the idea was just too absurd.

 _Fantastic, you know where the missing kids are. Now die in peace._ _What else are you going to do?_

Honestly? He had no idea.

Lie around in wherever this was some more? Could he wake up? You can't cure death, that's for sure.

But he wasn't dead yet.

_Alright, wake up... NOW!_

Absolutely nothing happened.

_Try that again, wake up... NOW!_

He remained in the empty blackness.

_Oh fantastic._

He couldn't die here, wherever he was in real life. There were still the kids and the Puppet and Phone Guy's rotting body and the Purple Guy. He didn't care if it wasn't his business, he'd been taking the job for almost a week. He was involved.

He rolled over, fell out of the bed and landed heavily on the floor.

* * *

For a few seconds, he couldn't breathe. Any previous thoughts laced with confidence and dedication were erased from his mind. He was lying on the floor, winded and drooling slightly with next to no clue what to do.

_Ouch._

The thought came ten seconds too late.

What now?

Where was he? What time was it? What day was it? What year was it?

He struggled to order his thoughts.

_My name is Mike Schmidt, it's the it's the 11th of November, 1993, I work at Freddy Fazbear's Pizza and I've gotta get up and... Do... Something..._

What was he going to do exactly?

Right, something to do with dead bodies. Lovely.

He struggled to lift his arms to grab something in order to pull himself to his feet but pain lanced through his right shoulder. Somebody had bandaged it and fresh blood was sluggishly beginning to soak through the white fabric. His other arm was stuck underneath him and he was too weak to shift his weight to free it.

This wasn't going according to plan. Not that he really had much of a plan to begin with. But this certainly wasn't going the way he had hoped.

After a few minutes of silently cursing and flailing about, he finally managed to drag himself into a sitting position.

Well, at least he wasn't dead.

Not that he felt much better off. Just sitting up made him feel like puking. How was he supposed to stand or walk? On top of that, he had a throbbing headache as if Purple Guy himself was trying to smash his skull in.

He surveyed his surroundings. He was sitting in a bedroom, his back against the bed. The floor was littered with assorted junk and clothing and held the same air of untidiness as Jeremy's apartment. How he would have gotten there, he had no idea. But it was much better than hospital. Or a morgue, for the matter.

_Ok, first things first._

_Get up, go to the police? Would they take you seriously if you tried to tell them where some six-year old skeletons were lying around?_

_Maybe don't go to the police. Maybe you could just go to the pizzeria and open up the animatronics to show them the skeletons? Then you'll have proof that you're not some stressed, sleep-deprived lunatic._

Ok, just get help. Or at least tell someone where the kids' skeletons were. Maybe then the five of them would finally rest in peace.

He could barely move his shoulder and the rising urge to throw up made standing more difficult than it should have been. He was a complete wreck. When he finally did manage to pull himself up, he had to desperately cling onto the wall to prevent himself from toppling over. The pale wallpaper peeled under his clawing hands as he limped toward the door. It took all his concentration not to trip over onto his face.

He pretty much fell onto the door handle, throwing the door open and stumbling, losing his balance and falling face-first onto the stained living room carpet.

For a moment, he could have sworn he heard a child's laughter before it swiftly faded into nothingness.

All Mike could think was  _Great, now I have to get up again..._

He shuffled around a little on the scruffy flooring, stopping to swear when pain shot through his shoulder.

A shadow fell over him. A voice that he didn't want to hear spoke, "You're so graceful."

Chica was standing above him, pink eyes glittering with malice.

No- Mike stared hard. It was Fritz. His blank eyes stared nonchalantly down at him.

How could he have possibly gotten them confused? 

"You're so..." Mike struggled to think up a comeback before giving up, "Help me up."

Fritz held out his hand, watching as Mike struggled to disentangle his arms from beneath him. As he was dragged to his feet, he caught sight of his cast. A crack was running down the plaster, thin and short but it could easily split the entire thing in two.

Mike fell backward, leaning against the wall as Fritz left go of him and turned away to go to the couch.

"Jeremy and I came by the pizzeria this morning." he said without bothering to look over at Mike as he opened a book lying on the chipped coffee table, "Course, the door was locked so we had to wait for an employee to come. Jeremy was freaking out, he's got this problem where he cares too much about people. The employee seemed really concerned about you when we found you crying outside the backstage. Her name was Nicole or something."

"Nikki?" Mike questioned, he had no clue why she would be concerned about _him_.

"Yeah, something like that." Fritz said, "So Jeremy's out right now. That means I have to babysit you and make sure you don't punch me and steal my car keys again."

"I punched you?" he was surprised. Fritz looked like the kind of guy that if you punched him, he'd break your wrist.

Oh, wait. His wrist was already broken.

"You punched Jeremy." Fritz stated flatly, "You also threw him into the wall and broke his glasses."

Mike cringed. That wasn't what he was hoping to hear at all, "Sorry."

"Don't apologise to me." his voice was hard nonetheless, "Just between you and me, I personally would have never let you in here in the first place. If Jeremy hadn't insisted, I would have left you on the street to wake up."

"Ok."

He actually looked up this time, "What?"

Mike sighed, "I don't blame you." he said, slipping down the wall slightly. His legs could barely support his own weight by now, "You don't want to have anything to do with what I'm going through, I didn't mean to get you and Jeremy involved again."

He had no clue whether or not Fritz was satisfied with his apology or not. The other man didn't look back at him.

After what he'd gone through, it made sense that Fritz hadn't jumped at Mike's idea to dismantle the animatronics. If somebody had turned up on Mike's doorstep and asked  _him_ to go back and mess with the very things that had tried to kill him, he'd probably tell them to get lost.

The laughing returned. Mike's eyes darted around the room, searching for the source but he and Fritz were the only people there. It sounded just too real to be a recording.

A wave of nausea washed over him, so strong he almost collapsed.

"I need to puke." he choked, one hand going to his mouth.

"You know where the bathroom is." Fritz stated emotionlessly without glancing at him.

Mike staggered toward the bathroom, gagging. He fell to his knees in front of the toilet and and retched, sour bile stinging his mouth and throat as the contents of his stomach was forced out. It had been ages since he'd last eaten something and all that came out was acid mixed with drool, strands hanging from his mouth as he pulled away. He didn't even feel like he could lift his hand to wipe it away. Somebody crouched down next to him.

They sighed and Mike heard them tear away a piece of toilet paper. A second later, Fritz was wiping the bile off his mouth and chin.

“I feel like I'm dealing with a toddler here.” he muttered, dropping it into the toilet bowl.

Mike sat down heavily, staring at the grey tiled floor. A few minutes ago, he felt like he really could do something. Now he just wanted nothing more than to go to sleep and never wake up. In a way, that sounded a lot like dying. For some reason, it didn't sound too bad anymore. At least he wouldn't be tormented by visions of the Purple Guy hunting down the missing children or Phone Guy begging for mercy as his body was mangled into an animatronic suit. He didn't notice more drool seeping out of his mouth until Fritz was wiping that away, too.

“You need water or something?” he inquired, getting more toilet tissue ready in case Mike would start drooling again.

With his mouth dry and tasting like puke, Mike nodded. Fritz disappeared from the bathroom for a minute before returning with a glass. He held it out but Mike made no move to take it from him, he doubted that he had the strength for that.

Fritz sat down opposite him and held the glass to Mike's mouth, “Try not to choke.” he told him as he tipped it slightly and brought it away.

The water just sat in Mike's mouth. It was as if he'd forgotten how to swallow it. Seconds later, it began to trickle out of the corner of his mouth. Fritz wiped that away and tried again. This time, it successfully stayed down. He suddenly realised how thirsty he was, he hadn't drunk anything in almost a day.

He weakly tried to take the glass from Fritz, but he held it out of his reach.

“If you drink it too quickly, you'll throw up again.”

“I don't care.” his voice surprised him. It was a lot lower and ragged than usual, as if he hadn't used it in years.

Fritz set the glass down by the sink, “You'll regret it later.” he told him, “You should go back to sleep.”

Mike shook his head, wincing as it began to pound. He needed sleep and water. One he didn't want and the other he wasn't allowed.

The older man ignored him, “Are you going to sleep on the floor or Jeremy's room?”

“I'm not sleeping.”

“Yes you are.”

“You can't make me.”

Fritz sighed, fixing Mike with his constantly vacant stare that seemed to be able to look right through him, “I take back about you being like a toddler, this is worse.” he stated. When Mike didn't argue, he sighed again and crouched down opposite him, “Hey Mike?” his tone was unusually gentle but Mike could barely feel shocked at that fact at that point.

Mike just stared blankly at him.

For the first time, his eyes held some kind of expression that glittered behind them. Mike had no clue if it was fear or uncertainty or concern or all three. He closed his own eyes, wishing for a dreamless sleep to take him away.

It was about a minute before Fritz spoke again.

“I'm...” he hesitated, the pause seemed to last years as he struggled to voice his thoughts, “I've decided to take your final shift tonight.”

Mike's eyes flew open and he tipped to one side. Fritz managed to catch him right before he could collide with the floor.

“You- you can't!” he rasped, his body shuddering. The little water he'd been allowed began to dribble out of his mouth as drool, “They'll kill you if you go alone!”

Slowly, Fritz lowered him to the floor. The right side of his face pressed against the icy tiles, “They won't kill me.” Fritz told him, “They won't kill anybody anymore. I know what I'm gonna do.”

“They're ghosts, you can't do anything!” Mike protested weakly, but he felt as if he could barely move. His voice had risen to a raspy whine.

He hated it.

“It doesn't matter if they're ghosts, which they're not.” Fritz stated, standing up, “They start wandering at 12 and go back to the stage at 6. Because they're _programmed_ to. I can change their programming, if there's a glitch I can fix it. I can make them less hostile. The company can keep their dumb singing animals, they just won't be dumb singing murderous animals.” 

Mike groaned, “You're gonna die, you idiot.” he mumbled, unable to think up anything else to say. His sweaty face had stuck to the tiles beneath him.

“I'll get there before 12, before they start to wander around.” Fritz assured him, “Even if I don't get them all finished before 12, I know what to do. I can keep myself safe until morning and I can finish the job before anybody comes.”

“But-” Mike began. Fritz cut in.

“Mike, I got arrested for murdering kids there.” his words were icy, but Mike had a feeling this coldness wasn't directed toward him, “People had died there before, I can't let anyone else get killed because of that place. Jonathan's survived there for years, I can survive one night. I have to do this.”

“Phone Guy's dead.”

That shut Fritz up he stared down at Mike, unable to speak for a minute before he managed to choke out weakly, “What?”

“He died a week ago.” Mike's words were slurring together, his vision was starting to get a little fuzzy around the edges, “During his last recorded message. This whole time, I thought he was alive and ok... But he was dead all along... You'll be dead too...” he couldn't keep his eyes open anymore, “You can't do anything. You can't...”

* * *

Somebody was crying.

He was standing in the centre of the dining area, but it looked different somehow. The tables were arranged differently and the hallways leading out of the room were located in different places. Standing on the show stage were Freddy, Chica and Bonnie but all three of them looked nothing like the versions he had seen. They were more brightly coloured, with blushing cheeks. This new model of Chica was considerably slimmer and Bonnie was blue instead of purple.

The building was dark, everybody had left.

It was just him and these toylike animatronics.

The crying continued, a gentle sobbing. Like a child.

The animatronics didn't move.

Strange, the clock on the wall said that it was almost 6.

Who was crying?

He glanced down at his hands.

Strings.

He could hear the crying clearly now, it wasn't just one child. He could hear the sound coming from down the hall on his left, but another closer source. Someone was under a table nearby.

He tried to walk toward the sound, but the strings held him back. He pulled against them, tried in vain to tear those things out of his hands and feet.

The table was so close, the crying child was so close. He __had_ _ to reach them.

He had to cut himself free somehow.

Another sound joined into the crying. The sound of laughter.

Behind him was somebody. They were clad in purple, eyes of the same colour glittering with amusement as they watched him flail among his strings.

They shook their head and they held the end of his strings in their hand.

"You can't save them." they told him, "It's me."

A guttural snarl tore itself from his throat.

Who are you?

Who are you to say I can't save them?

They're just like me. Lost, confused, scared, in pain...

Just who the  _hell_ are you?

He couldn't see the Purple Guy's face, it was hidden by a ragged, golden rabbit mask with a grin that slashed through its face. Despite this, he knew that the Purple Guy was grinning too behind it.

How can you smile?

What have you done?

He grabbed ahold of the string that was embedded in his right hand and ripped it straight out. To his surprise, he felt no pain.

No pain. Just hunger for vengeance.

The Purple Guy's mask was smiling, but he knew there was no grin hidden behind it anymore.

He tore out the strings on his other hand and the ones on his feet. The Purple Guy froze, dropped the strings and sprinted out of the darkened room, footsteps echoing through the shadowy halls.

More than anything, he wanted to chase the Purple Guy. He wanted to pick up his strings and wrap them around the Purple Guy's neck, cutting through flesh, blocking airways and arteries, making their life slowly, slowly drain.

But he had to save them.

The boy was under the table, limbs smashed, face mutilated. His body was like ice, skin pale under the blood that covered it.

Too late.

The next one was also a boy. The top half of his face ripped right off, exposing his skull beneath. His eyes were ruptured, one arm broken with jagged bits of bone poking through the flesh.

Too late.

The third was a little girl, her arms twisted and bent, mouth torn, her stomach opened with her burst guts spilling out across the floor.

Too late.

The fourth was another boy, slumped right outside the office door. His jaw was shattered, the only thing keeping it attached to his face were bloody strands of skin. It looked as if every bone in his body was broken.

Too late.

The last one was older. A girl. All that was left of her was a mangled heap of flesh, blood and bone that loosely resembled a person.

Too late.

Maybe he should have pursued the Purple Guy after all.

He'd seen these five before. Four were in the pizzeria earlier, there had been a party and then...

Then this happened.

They didn't deserve this.

He had to do something, anything. But what? What could he do? They were dead. All five of them were dead.

He wished that somehow, they could be like him. Able to wander the living world. They had to. He couldn't kill the Purple Guy alone. So many times he'd tried, but it was never the right person. Three people, he'd killed. It would have been more if he hadn't stopped himself just in time. Too many he had killed. For once, he just wanted to do something right.

Yes, he couldn't bring these five back, but...

He could give them a gift.

The old animatronics were lying about in the Parts and Service storeroom. Nobody would open them up to look inside because they had always worked just fine. At the same time, nobody would throw them away either. They had led Freddy Fazbear's Pizzeria through its most successful years.

It opened the old animatronics and one by one sealed the children inside.

The first boy could go inside Freddy. He looked like the leader type.

The second inside Bonnie. When he was alive, he had seemed a bit distrusting and quick to judge, but sincere.

The girl inside Chica. He had seen her before, she was a sweet young person with an obvious love for food.

The fourth he placed inside Foxy. His appearance was a little ragged and he seemed to be quite poor, but the kind to defend those he cared about.

He found the night guard unconscious but left him be. _He_ wasn't dead. He didn't need any gifts.

He did a head count. Those was the first four children, but...

There was one more. A suit-animatronic hybrid that barely worked. They'd removed most of the endoskeleton so it was only really the head and mouth that worked. Over the years, it had become an ugly old thing. Nobody would miss it.

He stared at Fredbear with the girl's corpse inside it. Was this one really a good idea? Nobody would check the other four, but this one was more likely to be opened up to have an endoskeleton placed in it or be scrapped and taken apart.

Where to?

There was a small yard out the back nobody ever used. It was too small to be used for parties so barely anybody went there.

If felt so wrong to bury the girl in the Fredbear suit out the back of the pizzeria, in dirt littered with cigarette butts and choked with weeds.

Finally, he was alone in the empty dining area. Blood splattered across the floor and walls were the only indication of what had happened that night. Nobody knew. Nobody had to know. This was between him and his new friends and the Purple Guy.

He may not have been able to bring them back to life, but he would do the best he could. Being a spirit couldn't be that bad when you had company.

The Puppet admired its work as the Westminster Chimes signalling 6am rang through the pizzeria and the sound of police sirens cut through the quiet air.

* * *

At least Mike could think semi-clearly now.

He was lying back on Jeremy's bed, watching the dust dance in the blood-red light of the sunset.

This time, it took a lot less flailing to get up and limp toward the kitchen. Not knowing where the cups were, he leaned over the sink and drank straight from the tap.

"Oh, you're awake!"

He jumped, almost bashing his face against the tap. Jeremy was hovering near the front door as if uncertain whether or not he should come any closer. Mike noticed that he was wearing different glasses and there was a red scratch under one of his eyes and across the bridge of his nose.

"Hi, Fritz said I punched you." it probably wasn't the best thing to say but he couldn't think of anything else.

Jeremy's hand went to the scratches on his face, "Don't worry about it, I-I'm fine."

All the same, Mike had never punched anybody in real life. At least, never with the intent of causing damage. And he'd hit this guy because what, he wanted to go to work?

"Sorry about that." he said.

Jeremy just shrugged, though he didn't make a move to come any closer, "Do you know where Fritz is?" he questioned, glancing around, "I told him to stay here but I can't find him."

Ooh crap.

"Yeah, well..." Mike hesitated, fidgeting with the end of his torn purple work shirt, "I think I might know where he is."

It didn't take long to explain. Maybe he should have worded some things a little differently because Jeremy looked like he was on the verge of panicking by the time he was done.

"I mean, he's not completely helpless but I don't want him to be alone, I don't want him to die alone, seeing what the animatronics had done to you last night must have made him snap, I mean not that it's your fault but-"

"Calm down!" Mike exclaimed, holding up his hands. The last thing he wanted was Jeremy to go into hysterics.

"Don't tell me to calm down!" he hadn't expected Jeremy to shout, it seemed so unlike him to do so.

He drew in several deep breaths, closing his eyes and reaching into his jacket pocket for his cigarette packet. He didn't bother to go outside to light it and the sour smoke soon filled the apartment. Finally, he spoke, his voice trembling.

"He- he might change his mind." he didn't sound as if even he believed his statement, "And he can't go in while there are employees, Mel would kill him if she saw him anywhere near her precious pizzeria since, well, everyone thought he killed those kids." he soon finished his cigarette and lit another one, "I'll go and try to find him. You stay here and wait."

"I'm not waiting for anything." Mike told him stubbornly. Jeremy fixed him with what he seemed to try to make look like a glare, but fear was evident in his brown eyes.

Jeremy was hesitant, taking a drag as an excuse not to say anything, "Ok." he said at last, "Have you got your keys?"

Mike shook his head, "I left them in the office last night." he said, "Still, that probably won't stop Fritz from getting in. He looked pretty determined." he glanced around the room to search for a clock, "What time is it?"

Jeremy checked his watch, "About 5:30." he said, "Fritz wouldn't have gone straight to the pizzeria, he could be anywhere right now." he nervously flicked ash off his cigarette, "As much as I hate it, the only way we can find him is by waiting until 12 when he will be in the pizzeria for sure."

Mike sighed, leaning against the counter. His strength was starting to drain again. He didn't like having to wait, either. But there wasn't much else they could do.

Six hours had never went by so slow.

A light drizzle raining down upon them, the dark grey clouds promising heavier rain approaching. Mike hoped that it wouldn't start thundering again like the previous night. Droplets flecked the windscreen as they drove in silence, Jeremy staring straight ahead, gripping the steering wheel so hard that his knuckles had turned white. The streets were deserted, save the occasional blaze of headlights cutting through the darkness or a lone pedestrian wandering alone in the dim glow of the street lamps.

Freddy Fazbear's Pizza loomed ahead, neon signs flickering ominously. The grinning images of the mascots hanging above the entrance looked more malicious than ever.

Mike tried the front door, rattling the handle despite the fact he knew it wouldn't open.

"It's locked." he stated, turning to Jeremy who had already making his way around the back of the building. A moment later, he heard him calling his name. He hurried around the side of the pizzeria to find Jeremy pointing at a shattered window that led to the dark kitchen.

Jeremy shook his head, dismayed, "Now he's broken in and entered." he said miserably, "If he gets caught, he'll be more dead that he already was going to be."

Mike ignored him and shrugged off his jacket, knocking stray shards of glass into the building. He winced as his shoulder ached, after this was over he was going to get stitches. That would give him two visits to the hospital in one week.

He lay his jacket down over what was left of the window pane and clambered into the building, hearing a faint crack coming from his cast. Jeremy followed soon after, shaking the glass out of Mike's jacket and handing it back to him. He checked his watch, 12:14. The animatronics were on their free-roaming mode by now.

He could make Jeremy out in the darkness, "We have to get to the office, it's not safe-"

Before he could say anything else, a panicked scream cut through the silence of the dark building.


	10. Night Five: The Final Night

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> I edited chapter 7, found some things were a bit useless so I cut them out. More details of the Purple Guy will be in the sequel, which will be shorter and more based around the characters.
> 
> Sorry this chapter was so late!

Neither of them could move.

Finally, Jeremy was able to choke out:

"That came from-"

"- The office." Mike finished.

Before he could make a move, Jeremy had sprinted into the shadows. He heard him shove the kitchen door open. A second later, Mike was right behind him.

Mike was faster than him and when they burst into the dining area, he grabbed ahold of Jeremy's wrist and dragged him to a standstill.

"What the hell are you doing?" Jeremy snarled, twisting out of Mike's grip. He flinched away from the other man's sudden aggression. A second later, he had disappeared down the hall, leaving Mike to give chase again.

There was nothing lurking in the hall, thank god. Even if there was, he doubted that would have slowed Jeremy down one bit. He reached the right door to the office only to see him being thrown back into the hall, almost colliding with him as he slammed against the wall.

"Son of a-" Mike began before something appeared before him, a hand closing around his throat.

He heard Jeremy shouting. "Fritz, calm down! Calm down!"

"Calm down?" a voice echoed. Fritz's hand tightened around Mike's neck, causing him to desperately gasp for air, "Please tell me how the hell I'm meant to do that."

Mike clawed at his hand, trying to pry it off him. He could feel his windpipe slowly being crushed in Fritz's iron grip.

He could make out Jeremy's pale face in the darkness of the hall, "Maybe um..." his wide brown eyes glanced from Fritz to Mike, "Y-y-you could start with, er, y'know, not killing Mike?"

Fritz's head turned to look at Mike and he let go, letting him slide feebly down the wall, injured shoulder burning.

"Sorry." he said, not sounding sorry at all as he turned and walked into the office. Mike scrambled to his feet and hurried after him, glancing behind them into the corridor in case something had tried to sneak up on them. The hall remained empty.

"It's t-too late to leave now." Jeremy said, glancing around the room, "I-I guess we've gotta take your shift after all."

"Yay." Mike cheered unenthusiastically. Who knows what would happen this night? He'd come pretty damn close to being killed horribly multiple times during the week, he didn't want Freddy to finally succeed tonight. Especially not now that it was his last night. It reminded him all too well of Phone Guy getting killed at the end of his final week and he tried to push the thought away. They were going to survive this.

They had to.

Fritz dropped down onto the chair and put his head in his hands, taking deep breaths. He finally leaned over the desk and turned on the monitor.

"So..." Mike looked over Fritz's shoulder to watch the screens, "Did you get around to rewiring any of the animatronics after all?"

Fritz grunted and switched the screen to Pirate Cove, "Yeah, I made sure to deal with Foxy first. That one's a real pain."

"You got that right." Mike agreed, at least they wouldn't be bothered with it running down the hall and trying to bash their door in anymore.

"That one and Bonnie." Fritz said, "That was all I could get around to doing before the shift started. I couldn't get in for hours, it took forever for everybody to leave before I could break in."

Mike shrugged, "We'll just have to get out of here as soon as it's 6, then." he told them, "At least now we have two less animatronics to worry about."

"No, they still want to kill us." Fritz calmly. He might as well have been talking about the weather with that tone.

The office went dead silent. Mike stared at the screen. It was difficult to see, but he could just make out Foxy's hook gleaming in the dim lighting between Pirate Cove's starry purple curtains.

"I thought you said you disabled them?" Mike demanded, hurrying to the left door to check to see if anything was in the hall.

"I said I changed their AI levels." Fritz replied emotionlessly, "Do you want me to explain it in little words so that your tiny brain can understand?"

Mike scowled, gripping onto the metal doorframe. He had hoped that Fritz had changed his attitude at least a bit when he decided to come here and help. It was tempting to insult him back but on the other hand, he was going to be stuck with him for six hours. If the animatronics didn't kill Mike, he would have preferred it if Fritz didn't, too. "Sure thing." he muttered.

He heard Fritz switch off the screen and sit back in his seat, "AI stands for Artificial Intelligence, the company introduced it years ago because they didn't want to have to manage the animatronics. It cost them a fortune but it was worth it. With this, they programmed the animatronics to basically take care of business. For example, if there's a party going on, the animatronics are programmed to move to the room with the most noise.

"Yeah, so?" asked Mike, turning back into the office. Jeremy had his cigarette packet open and looked like he was debating whether or not to light one.

"So, each animatronic's AI levels are controlled by the management." Fritz continued, "Inside the animatronics, there's a little dial with the numbers 0 to 20. This is used to control how active the animatronics are. Since they stay on the stage all day now, it's never used. But back before the Bite, it was changed all the time during parties depending on who the kids wanted to see more. If a kid liked Freddy best, Freddy's AI levels were changed to be higher so they'd see him more."

"But if the lowest level is zero-"

"They're still programmed to come into the loudest room and, of course, to put any endoskeletons they see wandering around into a suit."

"Couldn't you have turned them off-"

"What, you think I know everything?" Fritz spat, "If I'd broken them, I could get charged for destruction of property as well as breaking in and entering if I get caught!"

"Then don't get caught!"

Fritz groaned, "Well, it's too late now." he stated, "Just keep your eyes on Freddy and Chica and we can check for Bonnie and Foxy every now and again." he didn't bother to add 'we'll be fine' or 'don't worry' to the end of his sentence.

Mike sighed and switched the hall light on. Nothing was outside.

For now.

"What's this doing here?"

Jeremy was sitting on the desk, having pushed aside half of the junk that was lying about on it. He was holding in his hands the sketchbook Mike had found on the first night and was flicking through it, "Oh hey, I remember this picture! I drew that while I was having a psychotic episode! ... That one doesn't look familiar... Oh gross, guts!"

Mike sighed again.

There was a few minutes of silence. Finally Fritz spoke.

"Right door."

Jeremy looked up, "W-what?"

"Right door." Fritz repeated, turning to him, "I said right door!"

Something creaked outside. Metal against metal.

Right door.

Mike punched the button just as Freddy appeared in front of them. A loud scratching sound followed, something was scraping against the door, screeching like a rusty hinge. The noise set Mike's teeth on edge.

Fritz shook his head, pulling an elastic band off his wrist and tying his hair back, "Do you guys want to live or not?"

* * *

The office stayed in uncomfortable silence for the next two hours.

Every few minutes, Chica was at the door. A little less frequently, it was Freddy who stared in, glaring at them as if they'd killed somebody. Every now and again, Bonnie would wander slightly closer, a few times actually coming to the office but it wasn't much of a threat anymore. Once, Foxy came running down the hall and Mike thought Jeremy would have a heart attack. He screamed and dived under the table, hitting his head in the process.

Mike took over checking the cameras while Jeremy and Fritz looked out the two doors.

_Right, Foxy's not moved in a while... It's looking at us, better check back there again soon. Bonnie's still on the stage, it's so weird for it to not be trying to kill me as much as it usually does. Chica's getting close, Freddy's in the hall..._

"Hey, Mike?"

"Yeah?" he glanced behind him at Fritz. He hadn't been expecting him to speak to him.

He was leaning against the wall, eyes narrowed slightly as he glared into the dark hall, "How did Jonathan die?"

"How do you think?" Mike replied, turning away. He didn't want to start thinking about what had happened to the previous night guard. At least, not right at that moment.

"You didn't see his body, did you?" Fritz pressed, "Did you just hear his recording or what? Has he been reported missing? What has the staff said?"

"Nobody's said anything!" Mike exploded, spinning the chair around to face him, "I had no clue anything had happened to him until last night, okay?"

"So you just heard his message?"

"Yeah, I just heard his goddamn message!" Mike snapped, "Why does it matter to you?"

Fritz shrugged, "Just wondering. It all seemed a but sudden, that's all."

"I told you, he's  _dead_ , Smith. Phone Guy's dead, I heard him die! If he wasn't dead, he would have recorded another message to-" he broke off.

The phone started ringing.

Why had it taken so long? It usually rang around 12, sometimes a minute or so later. It was almost 2:30 now, the call was late. He looked at the other two men. Jeremy had frozen in place, staring at it with a look of pure terror. Fritz's eyes gave no emotion, but Mike could see his body stiffen.

It kept ringing.

Cautiously, Mike reached over and pressed the 'speaker' button.

It took a few moments for the sound to play.

" _Hello? Hello?_ "

The recording was filled with static. Phone Guy's voice buzzed and crackled.

" _I wanted to re- **BZZT** -ord a message -  **BZZT** \- you to  **THEY'RE COMING**." **  
**_

The three of them jumped, flinching away from the phone.

 _"There's absolu - **BZZT** \- y nothing to worry about! I_ -"

A piercing scream tore out from the speaker. Mike stumbled back, slamming the back of his head against the wall. He saw stars before his eyes as the screaming cut off.

" _You - **BTTZ** \- ight want to check the cam -  **BZZT** \- ras n-_ "

Another scream drowned out Phone Guy's words. Mike sank to the floor.

" _No! No! - **BZZT** \- _   _PLEASE!_ "

 _Just hurry up and kill me already_... If the animatronics were causing this, whatever this was, he hoped this meant they were close. He didn't know how much more of this he could stand.

Phone Guy's messages blurred into an incoherent demonic rumbling, punctuated by the occasional scream. 

_The metal beams sliced through his flesh, every nerve in his body on fire as his body was forced into his steel grave. The animatronic shoved him down into it, ripping him to shreds as he was forced into the deadly cage. Arteries were torn. Skin pulverised. Bones snapped like twigs. Blood oozed freely from the lacerations that covered him. Everything was red._

_Red._

_Red._

_Red._

_He couldn't even scream anymore. Couldn't fight. There was nothing he could do but slowly bleed out in the dark. The animatronic seemed to grin at him as if it knew what he was thinking. It was enjoying every second of this._

_Die._

**_CRUNCH_ **

A sickening cracking sound jerked Mike back into the present. The phone was lying on the ground in pieces, Jeremy frantically stamping on what was left of it. Mike found himself curled up on the floor. After a minute or so, he finally stopped, panting and the office fell into silence.

For a moment, nobody said anything. Finally, Mike spoke.

"Now we're definitely going to be charged with destruction of property."

Jeremy didn't say anything. He just stood there, pale and shaky before fumbling for a cigarette lighter. Mike heard Fritz give a disapproving sigh but the other man didn't say anything.

Mike stepped around Jeremy and the phone's remains to check on the cameras. He didn't want to look down at the red plastic shards lying on the floor. For four nights, Phone Guy had been his only companion. If you could even call him that. Now it felt like any connection to him was shattered.

Chica had taken the chance to enter the hall, Mike told the other two that and they crowded around the right door and waited for it to come.

It took about ten more minutes for things to really spiral out of control.

They'd swapped places again and Mike was back in the swivel seat. Jeremy was dozing off beside the west door and Fritz was stationed in the east. Mike had just been checking - with his heart racing - the dwindling power supply, when he became aware of a soft noise.

Over the past few nights, it was a noise he had grown used to hearing. The sound of the door opening and shutting. Of course, this wouldn't have been weird at all if one of the animatronics were anywhere near the office. And if the door wasn't continuously opening and closing.

Fritz was leaning against the wall, pressing the button every second or two and watching the door go up and down.

"Can you not?" Mike asked, starting to feel irritable when Fritz made no sign that he had heard him. "Leave the door open!" Fritz pressed the button again and the door slid open. "Thank you."

The second Mike turned away, he heard it close again.

He spun the chair around to face him, "You don't have to close the door yet, you're wasting power." he said in the most calm voice he could possibly muster.

Fritz ignored him and stared out the window.

"Hey, Fritz?" Jeremy cautiously questioned, "Are you ok?"

He didn't say anything. He just kept staring out the window.

Mike picked up a book from the desk and hurled it at him. It hit him in the shoulder and thudded to the floor. He didn't move.

"Don't you see them?" he asked suddenly. He reached over to the door and opened it before immediately closing it again.

"See who?" Mike asked to no reply, "Fritz, see who?" he switched the monitor back on and flicked through the cameras, Freddy was getting near the office, though it was still wasn't close enough to worry about yet. Chica was nowhere to be seen, but he could hear clanking sounds coming from the kitchen.

Fritz was still opening and closing the door, staring into the hallway.

"There's no one here but us." Mike told him, "Can you stop doing that?"

Open, close, open, close, open, close. Fritz made no indication that he had heard Mike at all. The only thing moving was his hand as he pressed the button, the rest of his body was rigid, eyes staring into the hall.

Mike was just opening his mouth to tell him to quit it when Fritz stopped, the door open. His arm fell limply to his side.

"Are you ok?" Jeremy asked him again.

He didn't say anything. He stayed where he was, his gaze fixed on something in the darkness. Mike and Jeremy glanced at one another.

Finally, Fritz whispered, "I didn't..." he didn't give any sign that he was aware of Mike and Jeremy's presence. "I  _didn't_ _!_ "

"Didn't what?" Mike questioned, a sense of foreboding washing over him, "Fritz? What are you seeing?" he switched the monitor back on and double checked every camera nearby them. Nothing out of the ordinary was in sight. "I don't see anything, is there something out there?" no reply, "Fritz?"

A high-pitched whine cut through the air. It took Mike a second to realise it was coming from Fritz. He was trembling, clinging onto the doorframe as if his life depended on it. He shook his head furiously, "I didn't! I didn't!" he wailed, "I- I-..." his voice trailed away and dissolved into sobbing. Weakly, he raised one arm to wipe away tears that were beginning to spill from his dark eyes.

Mike just stared blankly at him, unable to think of what to do or say. What could Fritz be seeing? And it appeared that only he could see it, too.

Come to think of it, he'd had times where he'd hallucinate throughout the week. Was this what he looked like when he was experiencing one?

"Didn't... Didn't... Didn't... Please..." Fritz whimpered. Mike swore he could hear the doorframe creaking and bending in his grip.

"Fritz, calm down!" Jeremy yelped, casting a glance down the west hall before running to Fritz's side.

"I didn't do this to you-" Fritz couldn't even finish his sentence. He shook his head again and raced out of the office and into the darkness.

* * *

Mike had to hold Jeremy back to stop him running after Fritz.

"Let me go, damn it!" Jeremy protested, struggling to get free, "That idiot's gonna get himself killed!"

"You're gonna get yourself killed if you chase after him." Mike muttered, switching the monitor on with one hand while he kept ahold of Jeremy's arm with the other. His right wrist was starting to sting badly now that the cast was coming apart. He hoped that it would last at least until the end of the night.

He flicked through the cameras. Chica was uncomfortably close to them in the east hall, and Freddy and Bonnie were in the dining area but he couldn't see Fritz anywhere. He checked all the cameras again, hoping that Foxy hadn't gotten him when he caught sight of a shape huddled in the corner of the supply closet.

He sighed in relief and let Jeremy go, "He's ok." he said, "He's in the supply closet. That's just outside the office."

At once, Jeremy was at the door, peering out into the hallway. "Let's go then." he said and without waiting for Mike to reply, disappeared.

Checking the monitors once more for animatronics, he hurried after him.

The supply closet wasn't far from the office; but that night, it felt like the two rooms were miles apart. The hallway was too dark to see if anything was nearby without it being almost right in front of you. He almost walked into Jeremy standing right outside the closet.

Jeremy cracked the door open, "Fritz?" he called into the dark room, "Are you in here?"

For a few seconds, there was silence. Finally, he heard somebody shuffle in the corner and mumble something.

The two of them checked behind them in case anything had snuck up on them before entering, closing the door behind them.

"I didn't kill anybody."

Mike blindly fumbled through the darkness toward Fritz's voice, "Yeah, we know you didn't."

"They don't."

Mike stumbled and hit the wall. He could see Fritz sitting in the corner, pulling pictures out of a cardboard box and tearing them up.

"Who doesn't?" Jeremy asked, glancing at the door as if he expected Freddy to come bursting in at any second.

Fritz held up a crayon drawing of Chica and observed it for a moment before ripping it to shreds and letting the pieces flutter to the floor, "They." he said simply.

"The Missing Children?" Mike guessed and Fritz nodded, tearing a picture of a group of kids and a golden Bonnie in two. "I thought you don't believe in ghosts?"

Fritz didn't say anything, he just kept shredding the old pictures drawn by past customers and letting them flitter into the shadows.

"They want to kill me because they think I'm your Purple Guy." he finally said.

"They think everyone's Purple Guy, you're no different." Mike told him. They couldn't stay here, an animatronic could wander in at any time. And the door in here was a lot less sturdy than those in the office. He knew exactly what would happen if they got cornered in here.

Jeremy seemed to be thinking the exact same thing as Mike was, "We have to go." he said.

Fritz didn't look up. He just kept ripping apart the drawings and blinking back tears.

"I didn't kill anybody." he said again.

"We know you didn't." Jeremy said gently, resting his hand on his shoulder, "But we really have to get out of here before something gets in."

Fritz nodded, "Give me a minute." he said quietly.

"We don't have a-" Mike began, but a look from Jeremy cut him off. He wanted to get out of the supply closet and back to the office as soon as he could.

Fritz picked up the entire box and turned it upside down, scattering the papers across the floor. He held out his hand to Jeremy, "Give me your lighter."

Jeremy took a step back, his hand jumping to his pocket, "Th-that's not a very good idea..." he protested weakly, "Fire alarms and stuff..."

Fritz sighed and looked down at the drawings, "Yeah, you're right." he agreed, "Bad idea. Never mind. Let's go."

Mike was only too happy to leave.

Thankfully, nothing was waiting for them in the hall. Mike glared into the darkness, searching for a figure lurking in the shadows. He swore for a moment that he could see something looming at the back of the hall but in the dim light, he wasn't sure.

He turned away from it and led the the other two men back to the office. He just wanted this night to be over so he could go back home where he'd finally be safe. He just wanted to forget about the entire week. This had been the worst career choice of his life.

And it was just about to get much, much worse.

Standing right inside the office, by the door as if it had been waiting for them was Chica. Its beak seemed to have been turned up in a menacing grin as if to say 'gotcha!'.

"Ah crap." said Fritz, his voice sounding as if he no longer cared what happened to himself, "We're dead."

The next few seconds were a blur. There was screaming. Somebody grabbed Mike by the wrist, hand closing around his breaking plaster and dragged him down the hall. Seconds later, they were in the dining area. Bonnie and Freddy's heads turned to face them as they burst into the room. The animatronics' eyes seemed to glimmer with triumph in the dark.

The sound of a curtain being pulled open scraped through the air, like nails down a chalkboard. slowly, they turned to their left to see the curtain to Pirate Cove parting by a hooked hand and Foxy's yellow eyes gleaming at them. Footsteps sounded behind them.

Chica was coming back.

There was no way they could get back to the office now.

"Oh, we're so fucked." Fritz mumbled. This time, he sounded more like he meant it.

Mike caught sight of a door to his left. He had no idea if it would hold back the animatronics. It didn't look too sturdy.

A whirring sound, gears turning and metal sliding across metal sounded from around them as the animatronics moved in for the kill.

Mike felt adrenaline rush through him as he sprinted toward the door. He heard Fritz and Jeremy right behind him.

Metallic screeches. Heavy footsteps as the animatronics blundered after them.

He heard Jeremy squeal from behind him. Bonnie had wrapped its thick arms around him and was trying to drag him away toward the stage.

Without thinking, Mike picked up the closest thing to him: a chair and hurled it at the purple animatronic. It struck Bonnie in the head, tearing the top half of its face off and sending the piece flying into the shadows. It dropped Jeremy to the ground, who scrambled to his feet and charged toward the door.

Fritz wrenched the door open and shoved Mike inside, sending him sprawling across the floor. He tasted blood and rolled out of the way just as Jeremy fell in the same spot he'd just lain.

He was barely aware of the pain in this wounded shoulder before Jeremy was screaming. Mike whirled around to see that Chica's head was stuck in the half-closed door, its beak wildly snapping open and shut as Fritz threw himself against the door in an attempt to keep it closed.

What happened next surprised Mike. Jeremy grabbed the closest thing to him, a heavy book coated in dust and mould and started smacking the animatronic in the face with it. It would have looked a little more impressive if he wasn't still screaming and crying while doing so. He slammed the book between its glowing eyes, pushing it back and letting the door slam shut.

The handle rattled and the door cracked open. Within seconds, the three of them were struggling to hold the door closed against the strength of the animatronic.

_If it gets in, we're dead._

He didn't like where his thoughts were going.

On the other side of the door, Chica suddenly vanished and the three of them sank to the floor.

The room fell into a near silence, save their quick, panicked breathing.

"Is it gone?" Jeremy managed to say at last.

Mike looked behind him at the door that separated them and four murderous animatronics. "There's only one way to check." he said, "Personally, I don't want to find out."

"So, what now?" Fritz asked, his eyes had regained their usual dead look, "Are we going to stay here until six?"

Mike sighed, "Yeah, looks like it." he said, peering into the darkness as he waited for his eyes to adjust.

Where exactly was 'here'?

With all the panic of almost getting killed moments before, none of them had noticed the rotting stench. Or the dark shapes slumped in the corner like a group of corpses.

They were in the backstage.

Mike would have loved to be anywhere  _except_ this room.

He pressed himself against the door. Sitting in an office with certain death coming to break down the door was bad enough, but sitting in a room with decomposing corpses _and_ certain death coming to break down the door was even worse. Especially since the backstage's door was made of wood rather than metal like the office doors were.

Beside him, he heard a flick and caught sight of a small orange flame before the reek of cigarette smoke mingled in with the already putrid smell of the room. He and Fritz groaned in unison. He wondered what would be worse, getting stuffed into an animatronic suit or suffocating to death from second-hand smoke.

He squinted at his watch through the gloom, it was almost 4 and they were stuck in an easily accessible room right next to the stage filled with dead bodies.

Not his ideal way to spend the night.

He could hear his heart racing as he stared at the door, expecting something to come bursting through at any moment. The night wasn't over yet.

For a while, the only sound to be heard was their heavy breathing and the occasional clicking sound when Jeremy lit another cigarette.

Eventually, Fritz confiscated his lighter and broke the silence, "We should try and get back to the office." he said, "That's the safest place in the building."

"Would you mind telling us how?" Mike questioned dryly, "In case you haven't noticed, we have no way of telling if something's standing between us and the office. Unless you want to go out and check, that is."

"Have you got a better plan?" Fritz demanded.

Mike didn't know which he'd rather do: stay in the backstage with the rotting dead bodies with the constant risk of something coming through that flimsy door or running blindly back to the office where any or all the animatronics could be in his path. Unsure how to answer Fritz's question, he just shrugged.

"It's our best option." Fritz went on, "We can't rely on dumb luck to get us through the night. Unless you really want to end up like Phone Guy. We just have to run. Or be stealthy. Or both. Either way, here isn't the best place to-"

Jeremy's voice cut him off despite being barely over a whisper. Something in his tone instantly set Mike on edge. Fear laced with confusion and panic. The three short words he said chilled the room, sending icy shivers down Mike's spine.

"It's still here."

He hadn't moved from where he was sitting, rigid on the floor. His eyes were wide, staring at something at the back in the cluttered room.

At first, Mike thought it was just another cardboard box the staff stored supplies in. It was blue and purple in colour, covered in at least an inch of dust and lay half covered in shadow so it was easy to miss. The box itself was was a metre tall and a perfect cube shape, wrapped in purple ribbon the colour of the Fazbear staff uniform.

It was a while before Mike spoke, "What, the box?" he tried to sound casual, but there was something about it that unsettled him. Like there was something alive in there, ready to spring out at any moment.

"It's nothing." Fritz said, though his voice held a hint of unease, "It wasn't an animatronic anyway. It can't hurt you."

"What can't?" Mike couldn't tear his eyes away from the box, "Jeremy, what's inside?"

"When... When I worked here..." Jeremy's quiet voice trailed away, "When I worked here... Th-the first thing I was told t-to not let the music stop playing."

"The what?" Mike glanced at him, "I don't get it."

Music? Nobody had told him anything about music. Even Phone Guy, who'd explained everything to Mike.

Jeremy shook his head as if to clear it, "There... There was th-this music box." he stammered, "It- It was in the office. Throughout the night, the guard's top priority was to keep it playing. That came before even checking for animatronics and warding them off. No matter what, you couldn't let that music box go quiet. Because if you did... If it went quiet..."

"Why?" Jeremy didn't say anything, "What happened when the music would stop?"

He stared at the edges of the box. In some places, the dust looked disturbed. Almost as if somebody or something had recently moved the lid.

"Because when the music stopped," Jeremy breathed, "it would leave the box. There was no stopping it after the music stopped."

Mike couldn't breathe. Music? He hadn't heard a note of song during his shifts, save Freddy's haunting jingle when the power ran out and the Westminster chimes at the end of his shift. Did that mean that something else was roaming the halls that he had missed this entire time? Somehow, he managed to choke out, "Stop what?"

"The Puppet."

At once, the lid of the box shifted and music filled the previously silent air.

* * *

It sounded like  _Pop Goes the Weasel_ , but only the first few bars of the song played before it looped back to the beginning in an endless cycle.

The lid shifted again. Three black fingers peeked out from under the lid. A whimper sounded. Mike didn't know who it came from. He didn't even know if it was him who made the sound. The lid rose a few centimetres before toppling to one side. Dust rose in a cloud where it fell. Something was rising from the box. Untangling its long, spindly limbs as it drew itself to its full height.

Its round, pale head almost touched the ceiling. Its painted-on smile seemed to leer at them as it loomed above them. Blank, empty, soulless eyes stared down at the three of them, only a pinprick of white light glowing in the centre of each socket. The paint on its hands was scratched and chipped, as if someone had ripped its strings right out of it. The purple tears running down its face almost appeared to be actual liquid flowing down its white cheeks.

Mike didn't know how long the four of them stood there, unmoving. The people staring at it and it staring back. He barely dared to breathe.

And then it began to move.

It was fast. One second it was standing in its box and the next, it was right in front of them. Mike staggered back a step. His legs had gone weak. He couldn't have bolted if he'd tried. Another second passed and he had been thrown back into one of the tall shelves that lined the wall. Pain shot through his entire body. Shoulder. Arm. Back. Leg. He heard his plaster break as he hit the floor. Suns exploded in his eyes.

His vision finally cleared, revealing the room in all its darkness. The Puppet was shoving Jeremy into the ground with one hand and holding Fritz off the floor by his throat with the other. For something so feeble-looking, it was ridiculously strong. No wonder it had been able to overpower so many night guards.

A ghastly gurgling sound escaped Fritz's mouth as he struggled weakly struggled to break free.

"Hey, um... Zachariah?"

The room suddenly went still.

Mike's shaking voice sounded obnoxiously loud. One hand clung to what was left of his plaster as if that could magically fix it.

"Zach? Do you go by Zach? Y-you ok if I call you that?"

The Puppet didn't move. It just stared at him, smile still on its face. Fritz had gone still and hung limply from its hand.

"Could you... Put my friend down, please?" he tried weakly, "I mean, he's a bit of a douche but you, er, really shouldn't kill him."

There was no indication that the thing had heard him at all. Jeremy was staring at him as if he'd lost his mind.

Mike winced, he had no clue what he was doing. But he'd rather try than get murdered by a living stick figure.

"We're not looking for trouble, Zach." he said, struggling to stop his voice from trembling. He hoped that the part of the murdered child inside the Puppet could hear him. "We didn't kill you. None of us killed you. That was somebody else. Some purple guy."

There was a long pause. He didn't say anything in case he would say the wrong thing. He hoped he hadn't already said the wrong thing.

The Puppet just kept staring at him. Then it opened its hand and Fritz dropped to the floor with a thud and lay there, unmoving. Mike flinched as it took a step toward him.

 _Oh shit_.

Was it going to kill him? Kill everyone else? He had no idea. The shadows cast around its face made it look like something from a horror movie. That wide grin of its didn't help, either.

It stood right in front of him, still as a statue. It seemed to do that a lot. If it was going to kill him, Mike wished it would just hurry up and get it over and done with.

 _"The Purple Man._ _"_

Mike jumped. What the hell? Its mouth wasn't moving, but it was clearly the Puppet that was talking. It had a little boy's high voice, scared and lost. Trembling with every word. Jeremy had backed into the corner, staring at it in horror.

 _"He'll..._ _"_ was that a sob?  _"He'll come back... He_ always _comes back..."_ the Puppet itself didn't move, betraying none of the emotions that its voice held,  _"You're not safe. Nobody will be safe as long as he's still around. I-I had to get rid of him. To make everyone safe again."_

The room was swimming before his eyes. The backstage was gone, replaced by familiar halls. A shadowy figure was sitting in a room at the end of it, staring at a screen. He strained his eyes to make out their features, but it was like looking through a veil of muddy water. All he could see was the purple shirt and a glinting gold badge on their chest.

 _Security_.

Run.

Screaming.

Dragging.

YOU WILL PAY!

Screaming.

Suits.

No one will find him here.

Him?

Oh.

The guard was a woman, her green eyes already starting to cloud over from where they had popped out the front of the animatronic's mask.

Uh-oh.

More people. More mistakes. But they all looked the same! Which one could be the real one?

Then he came back.

He was in a golden suit. There were five others. Children. One by one, they all died.

And then he left. Safe and without consequence.

But he will come back.

He always does.

We have a place for him.

Here. Among those whom he's ended.

He will pay.

_"I have to find him."_

Mike was once again back in the backstage, chest heaving, sweat soaking his clothes.

_"No one else is going to die because of him. Because of me."_

"Look, that's great and all, the whole revenge thing," Mike said, trying to control his breathing, "But I think that going around and killing all the night guards you can see is a really horrible plan." Zachariah didn't say anything, "I get that you're angry that you were killed, but that doesn't mean you should kill everyone else along the way."

 _"But he'll come back!_ _"_ Zachariah's voice feebly protested,  _"And when he does-"_

"When he does?" Mike could hardly believe he was cutting off this thing that could kill him in a second, "When's that going to be, Zach? An hour? A week? A year? A decade? How many more innocent people are you and your ghost buddies going to murder until he comes back?" when the child didn't answer, he sighed, "Look, I know that this is going to be hard to accept, but killing people doesn't solve all your problems." he paused, "No, that sounded dumb. let me rephrase myself..."

He heard Fritz groan. He wasn't sure whether it was out of pain or exasperation.

Ignoring him, Mike continued, "I guess what I'm trying to say is that you're no better than Purple Guy." he waited for the Puppet to lash out at him. When nothing happened, he went on, "You're just blindly killing everyone that looks remotely like him. What do you think will happen when you finally do get him? You'll go to whatever Heaven you believe in with unicorns and rainbows and everything will be ok? You've got blood all over those skinny puppet hands of yours, same with those other kids. You've seen some stuff, done some stuff." he hesitated, "Look, I'm going to be completely honest with you, Zach. I don't think any of this was worth it."

There was a short moment of silence.

 _"Then what will I do?"_ Zach questioned. He sounded like he was on the verge of tears. His mask continued to grin.

Mike didn't say anything. He looked over to Jeremy, who was staring at the Puppet with wide eyes, his entire body shivering. Fritz was sitting up, blood tricking down one side of his face. He shrugged weakly.

For the first time in what seemed like forever, the Puppet shifted. Its head swivelled around to face the door.

 _"She's here."_ Zach said softly,  _"The woman and-"_

Before anything else could be said, the Westminster chimes rang through the building.

6am.

The Puppet turned and almost robotically walked back to its box, folding up its limbs as it descended back inside.

All eyes whirled back to the door when the handle rattled.

There weren't many things he was expecting to be on the other side of that door. Freddy? Bonnie? Chica? Foxy? Fredbear? One of those murdered children, crying for revenge?

Much to his surprise, it was none of them.

"What the hell happened here?" Mel demanded, leaning so far into the room it looked as if she would fall in any second. Lex was standing right behind her, holding in his hands what was left of Bonnie's face.


	11. Epilogue

Nobody said anything. What was there to say?

Mel's eye twitched as she surveyed the three of them huddled on the floor. Behind her, Lex shifted in obvious discomfort. She folded her arms across her chest, seemingly unable to decide who to fix with her death glare.

Mike wished he could just disappear into the shadows. He couldn't help but wonder which fate was worse: Getting stuffed into an animatronic suit or facing Mel's rage.

Finally, Lex broke the silence.

"Rough night?"

This was enough to make Mel snap. She whirled around to face him, "You can keep out of this, Alexis!" she snarled, "I have no idea why you're back here but this is between me and my employee. Let me sort this out professionally!"

Lex sighed and held his hands up in mock surrender, taking a step back. Mike, Jeremy and Fritz all shrank away when Mel spun back around to face them.

"As for you three," she spat in distaste, "I have never before seen such unprofessionalism since my pizzeria reopened! Is it that difficult to stay inside the office, Michael? Is it?"

Mike looked at the ground.

"And  _you_." Fritz flinched away when Mel turned to him, "First you murder five children on  _my_ property and then you dare to come back, vandalise  _my_ animatronics and expect me to let you get away with it?"

Mike had seen Fritz scared earlier that night, something he hadn't expected himself to witness. But what he looked now paled in comparison. He had pinned himself against the wall, trembling. His eyes that normally held no emotion were wide and his chest was rapidly rising and falling.

Mel glared at each of them in turn, "I am calling the police." she stated, wrinkling her nose. Mike had no idea if it was in disgust or the foul odour that was coming from the suits.

The suits.

"Great idea." he said, Jeremy and Fritz's heads whipped around to stare at him as if he had gone insane. Maybe he had.

Lex was the only person who looked calm in any way, leaning against the doorframe and observing Mike with interest.

Not sure if he would be able to stand (and he'd also peed himself at some point and didn't want to give Mel another excuse to humiliate him), Mike crawled toward the suits slumped in the corner. Out of all four occupied suits, only one smelt. It was fresher than the rest, about a week old. It smelt worse than ever now that he was right next to it. Greyed eyeballs, slightly deflated hung out of the eye sockets at the front of the mask.

"Michael." Mel warned, "Don't you dare tamper with my animatronics."

Mike ignored her.

The Foxy suit was stained the worst, though the scarlet had dried and was turning a brown colour. The faux fur had been soaked through, though it had long since dried, becoming crusty and stiff. Mike grabbed onto the mask and gave an experimental tug but it was stuck on.

"You might not want to do that..." Jeremy mumbled from behind him.

Mike ignored him, "You can call the police now." he told Mel without looking over his shoulder, "I'm sure they'll find this very interesting."

He tried again in vain to pull the head off. The body inside must have started to decompose and stick to the inner wires and crossbeams of the suit. He tried twisting the head and was met by a disgusting squelching sound. He heard somebody behind him whimper. But the mask was starting to loosen, he twisted it back and forth, a cold liquid seeping underneath it and smearing his hands.

"That's enough, Michael." Mel said and he heard her approaching him. Without waiting for her to pull him away, he wrenched the head upward, tearing the mask off as he fell onto his back.

"Holy-" Mike heard Fritz gasp as Jeremy threw up behind him. All Mike could make out was purple-grey skin covered in gashes, flesh completely missing in some places. Clumps of hair scabbed with blood hung limply to the corpse's skull and its eyes were completely gone, Mike must have torn them out when he pulled the mask off.

He struggled to push down the urge to puke as he sat up, tossing the Foxy head lined with blood and bits of skin to one side.

"So," he turned back to Mel, feeling dizzy, "you said you were going to call the cops?"

He would have treasured the look on her face forever. Her eyes were practically popping out of her head, mouth hanging open as she held onto the wall for support. The only sound she could make was a strangled choking sound as she stared at what was left of Phone Guy.

Finally, she snapped her mouth shut, tightening her lips into a straight line.

"Michael Schmidt." she said, her voice icy, she pulled a pink notebook out of her pocket and scribbled something down as she went on, "You will all leave my pizzeria and never come back to this place or, I  _will_ call the police. What happened to Jonathan was an accident, but that accident will remain a secret that will never leave this restaurant. Do I make myself clear?"

Her words were followed by the three of them mumbling 'yes ma'am' and 'ok yeah sure'.

"Good." she dropped the pink slip into Mike's lap.

 _NOTICE OF TERMINATION_  
_(you're fired)_  
_Reason: Tampering with the animatronics. General unprofessionalism. Odor._

He stared at it. It was like a slap to the face, he was already going to leave after this week. Was it really necessary to fire him?

"Mel." Lex was had followed her into the backstage.

She turned to glare at him, "Can't you see I'm busy here?" she spat, "If you want to order something, you go find a waiter. This is none of your business at all. Unless you're here to arrest somebody, please leave."

Arrest?

Lex was... Smirking? It didn't seem to fit the situation they were in at all. Mel visibly fumed as he casually placed his hands in his pockets, "I'm not here to order anything." he said calmly, "I merely came by to check on Mike, whom I'd had the pleasure of running into the other day in the archives about this place."

If looks could kill, Lex would have been with Phone Guy and the other deceased night guards.

"Is there something you're not telling me, Alexis?" Mel's voice was as sharp as a sword.

He shrugged, "I just found it amusing that you threatened to call the police." he stated, "They're already here. They're all waiting right outside this building."

Mel grinned nastily and Mike found himself wishing he could die right then on the spot. So he'd survived the animatronics. That was enough for him. Everything was supposed to be over now. Instead, he was going to get arrested for breaking in and entering along with whatever crimes Mel found him guilty of.

Honestly, he would have preferred it if the Puppet had just killed him that night.

"Excellent." Mel practically purred, "I want them all in immediately. These three are all guilty of trespassing and vandalism and I would like to see them punished at once."

Mike felt sick. Any relief that came with him surviving the week had completely evaporated.

Lex's dark blue eyes slid over the three of them. Finally, he turned back to Mel. "I'm afraid you misunderstand." he told her.

Mel's eyes narrowed even more than Mike thought was physically possible, "Misunderstand?" she repeated slowly, "I don't think I'm misunderstanding anything, Alexis. These three are guilty and it is your duty as an agent of the law to protect me and my property from vile people like these." she spat at them and the three of them skittered back so they wouldn't be hit.

"Again, you misunderstand." Lex said, his smirk returning, "They're not here to arrest them. We're here to arrest you."

There was a shocked silence for a moment before he continued, a massive grin on his face, "For all the crap you've put me, my friends and my coworkers through in this place; Melanie Carlson, I'm placing you under arrest for manslaughter and withholding evidence related to the disappearance of the previous security guards from the police."

"Manslaughter?" Mel screeched and Mike cringed at the high pitch, " _Manslaughter_?"

"They _are_ your animatronics, are they not?" Lex questioned smoothly, not seeming at all fazed by her tone.

"Yes but-"

Lex cut her off, "Then you're responsible for them and their actions." he said simply, "As well as covering up the deaths of the night guards and the disappearances of Alejandro and Michelle Caro, you really are in trouble."

Mike could hardly believe what he was hearing. This all felt like some kind of _dues ex machina_  was taking place.

"You don't know how long I've been waiting for this." Lex continued, grinning like a kid on Christmas day. Mike probably would have been looking the same if he wasn't completely aware that the room was filled with corpses, "You've got so much crap buried in this place, who knows how long it'll take to dig up all the 'accidents' you've managed to hide? And then when they do..."

"Just get out." Mel's voice was quiet and lacking of expression. Lex just turned and practically pranced out, making sure to kick Bonnie's discarded face by the door.

"Let's go!" he called over his shoulder, "Mike? Jeremy? Fritz?" he peeked back inside the room, "Unless you'd like to stay, of course."

The three of them scurried out without a backward glance. Police were starting to file into the dining area, casting disturbed glances at the singing animatronics on the stage and whispering about how 'creepy those things are' and 'they let kids look at these things?'. Mike barely payed them any attention. He was still trying to piece together everything that had happened in the past few hours.

All he managed to say was, "So, I'm not getting arrested?"

Lex just laughed, "Nah, you're safe." he said, "I was getting worried about you, but it looks like you made it out of that place just fine. I've spent years in the police force just so I could close this place down. I just had to gather enough crap to make into a case."

They almost ran into Nikki who was about to enter. Mike just waved the pink slip at her and she pointed inside at the policemen disappearing into the backstage, "I think I missed something." she said, "Would it be weird for me to ask why the heck this place is swarming with cops?"

"Long story." said Mike, "Lots of death and murder. Nasty stuff." he paused, "I guess this means that you also lost your job."

Nikki shrugged, "I've made it clear heaps of times that the place sucks, I was going to quit sometime anyway." she said casually, "Maybe even try and get myself fired for fun."

"So sorry to take that opportunity away from you." Mike replied half sarcastically.

He heard Fritz call, "Hey, are you coming?" he didn't look too good. His skin was pale, his hands buried into his coat pockets and he didn't seem like he wanted to look anybody in the eye. Mike couldn't blame him. With everything that had happened that night, they were lucky to be alive and not in prison.

"So, what now?" he wasn't sure why he asked that. Fritz voiced his thoughts exactly.

"Go home and forget this ever happened."

Lex gave him a funny look, "You of all people should know that's impossible." he said, "This isn't the kind of thing you can just forget. All the guards' experiences have stayed with them until they died."

"Cheerful thought." Jeremy mumbled.

Nikki glanced at each of them in turn, "Is the night shift really as crappy as people say it is?"

"Oh, it's more crappy." Mike told her without a trace of doubt in his mind.

"You haven't heard the rumours." Nikki said, "They're all about ghosts and zombies. Now  _that's_ crappy."

Mike laughed. He had no idea what was so funny about it.

Jeremy turned right and pushed open the door of a shop. Everyone else held back and he turned to stare at them, "What?"

"Where are we going?" Mike asked.

Jeremy pointed tiredly at the shop's sign, "To get cake." he said as if it was the most obvious thing in the world, "I want cake. Let's get cake. The cake at Fazbear's is gross. This here is good quality." he paused, "Also, Fritz took my lighter so I can't smoke. Cake is the next best thing."

Lex just shrugged, "Ok then." he said simply, "Let's get cake."

"Sounds good to me." Nikki agreed.

They didn't say too much after that. Jeremy was right, the cake was good. He and Nikki chatted a bit but he didn't pay too much attention to the conversation. He had other things on his mind.

He managed to get Lex alone for a minute. He had too many questions and not enough answers.

They'd left the other three alone at their table and stepped outside. Lex leaned against the painted green wall of the store as he stared across the road at the cars going by. He turned his blue eyes to Mike, who was shifting uncomfortably. Suddenly, it felt weird to say anything about Freddy Fazbear's. As if the subject had somehow become taboo.

"You said you wanted to ask me something?" Lex asked, not looking away from the road.

Mike followed his gaze. It took a while to pull himself together.

"You worked at Fazbear's for a long time, right?"

"Uh-huh?"

He hesitated, "Was there ever a Purple Guy?" he suddenly felt ridiculous for saying it. How many times had he tried to find the answer and failed?

Lex looked away from the road, confusion evident on his face, "Purple Guy?" he questioned, "We always had a purple uniform, if that's what you mean."

Mike shook his head, "No, I mean... Did you ever work with somebody with purple eyes?"

"Purple eyes?" Lex repeated. He probably thought Mike was crazy.

"I know, weird question." Mike said quickly, "But I really want to know."

The look Lex was giving him was that similar to a scientist discovering a new, weird creature found at the bottom of the ocean, "I did work with someone with purple eyes once." he said finally, "Two people, in fact."

Mike's heart almost stopped, "Really? Who?"

"Their names were Michelle and Alejandro." Lex told him, turning his gaze back to the road, "That was a long time ago, though."

Michelle and Alejandro? "You mentioned them back in the spare parts room?" he inquired, "You said they disappeared?"

Lex shrugged, "They actually both died horribly." he said, "Management just covered it all up and pretended they had no idea what had happened. I'd honestly almost forgotten about them until you brought them up just now."

Somehow, Mike felt he was lying about the last part but he didn't say anything. He just stood beside Lex outside the store, watching the traffic as thoughts of purple eyes, puppets, machines and ringing phones filled his mind.

* * *

Alone in that box.

Like he always had been.

In truth, Zach didn't mind it too much. He had always thought a lot better when he was away from other people. Whenever something was troubling him all those years ago, he'd prefer to find a secluded corner where even his parents couldn't find him. Not that he disliked company. No, he just found it less distracting and more comforting to be surrounded by nothingness every now and again.

It was nice and quiet in his box. Pitch dark too. He sometimes liked to imagine that he was floating in space, billions of miles away from any planet or star, the Earth too far to see.

Footsteps sounded outside the backstage. Heavy and lumbering. He instantly recognised them as Freddy's. The animatronic was slightly taller than the others and much heavier. Its footfalls echoed through the empty building.

They almost sounded... Lonely.

It had been years since he'd spoken to the other children. He didn't know if they even remembered him anymore, the one who had given them the gift of life. Perhaps they were too caught up in their pursuit for blood and justice to care about him anymore? Had bringing them back been a mistake? Finally, he had to admit that after all this time, he had gotten nowhere. Six years of the other children haunting the place hadn't brought anything good to go with it, either.

Perhaps that guard had been right. What was his name? He'd heard it being said a few times. Mike? Mike. Maybe he was right about everything. Maybe Zach was just wrong.

If he could, he would have sighed.

If that was the case, there was nothing he could do to the Purple Guy. He had to let that man go free. As much as he hated it... Maybe it was finally time for him to let go. Maybe it was finally time for him to move on.

He fumbled in the darkness, reaching up to push the lid off his box when he froze.

In the air that had previously devoid of sound, he could once again hear footsteps. Not the heavy thuds of Freddy, nor the quick-footed skips of Bonnie or the shuffling of Chica. Not even the frenzied running of Foxy. These footsteps were lighter and cautious. As if they expected danger around every corner.

Slowly, silently, he lifted the lid so he could just peek over the rim of the box. The backstage had almost completely been cleared, the empty suits removed along with some odds and ends members of the staff claimed or stole before the entire property was closed off to the public. The animatronics stayed, nobody wanted them. Left to wander night after night in an abandoned old building.

But now somebody was here.

How would the animatronics react to them? Whoever they were, they'd be dead in a few minutes.

The door was wide open, exposing the show stage and part of the dining area. Before Zach could push away the lid and fully emerge from the box, a dark shape appeared in the doorway.

Dark hair was greasy and unkempt, face pale as if he hadn't slept in days. He quickly glanced behind him and stepped inside. Purple eyes surveyed the room.

He had returned.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So that's the end of the first instalment.
> 
> In total, there'll be 3 main ones, taking up the first three games. I probably won't make one based off the 4th game as it's not directly involved in the main storyline (and also I don't know how to make the main character important enough without taking the spotlight away from more important characters).
> 
> So, Purple Guy will be in the next book. I won't say specifically who it is, that's for me to know and you to find out... Until the third instalment when you'll find out if all your suspicions are true: who is the Purple Guy and who is just another OC red herring?. So yeah. You gotta wait. Sorry 'bout that.
> 
> I'll try and update the next one faster. This time around, the chapters will be structured differently (no more one night/day per chapter!) so that might help with my updating speed.
> 
> So until next time, see ya!


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